‘John Williams here – Inky is his nickname – is a mighty clever forger, of bank notes, certificates and the like. He also has a great mind for strategy; he’s smarter than a fox, and more wily to boot.
‘Now who’ve I missed? Oh, Samuel and Sean O’Grady, brothers and Irish nationalists like myself. Sam has a talent for fixing and making things – boots, saddles, traps and the like – so we call him Useful. As for his brother here, old one-eye …’
Da nods to a bushranger seated across the fire from you, Sean, who looks just like his brother, Sam, except that he wears a patch over one eye. He was the one, you remember, who threatened to feed Mr Tilsome’s guts to the dogs.
‘They call me Useless,’ Sean interjects, and all the men start chuckling. ‘I lost my eye when another prisoner in Macquarie Harbour attacked me with a burning stick. It’s true I’m not much help practically, but—’
‘But we keep him round because he sings like an angel,’ interrupts Inky. ‘Go on, Useless, show the lass what you can do.’
Sean closes his one eye and begins to sing. In that moment, even the earth stops spinning, and the rocks stop growing moss: the whole universe pauses to listen. How can a one-eyed bushranger have a voice so pure? How can a man who’s travelled through Hell sing like Heaven?
When he stops, the only sounds are the occasional pop of the campfire and a snuffle from your da as he wipes away a tear.
‘Now you see,’ says Da after he’s collected himself, ‘there’d be no point in fighting to be free if we didn’t have Useless here to remind us what freedom sounds like.’
‘So …’ muses Wombat, who is stout and bristly like his name. ‘What can you do, girl?’
There is an expectant pause round the campfire. Da is waiting to hear from you too – he wants you to stand up for yourself.
You think back over the journey you’ve been on: you’ve been reunited with Da; you saved Sarah from the prison; you made friends with Waylitja; you helped a foal to be born in a storm; you crossed the world; you survived Newgate Prison and stood up to Nell; you lived by your wits on the streets of London when it seemed not a soul in the world cared whether you lived or died; and the whole adventure began when you calmed a panicked horse. Or perhaps the adventure began before then – perhaps it began when you were only a small child, and your da taught you the meaning of freedom.
‘What can I do?’ you ask. ‘I can protect my friends, and keep my promises to them. I can survive when the sky is black and my family is dead and lost to me. I can cross the world on a prison ship. I can find new life where death and violence abound. I decide how I live. My choices are my freedom.’
Suddenly, you know what the lady who gave you the bracelet meant. When she gave you the bracelet, she gave you options. It was up to you to decide what to do with it: she was giving you freedom. Freedom to choose. That’s what the bracelet means.
You take a knife and run it through the stitches on your petticoat. You remember making these stitches two years ago; they have not been broken, and neither has your promise to keep it safe.
When you understand its meaning, you’ll know it’s time to pass it on.
The seven gemstones of your bracelet tumble into your palm. After all this time in your hem, the links between the stones on the bracelet have bent and opened; the chain is now broken into seven separate gems.
Seven gems, and seven men in the Shadow Gang … it seems right, somehow. You give your favourite gemstone, the glistening rainbow stone, to your da. Inky the forger gets the stone that’s dark-red like the ink or wax seals he can forge, and the brothers Sam and Sean (you refuse to call them Useful and Useless) get the two matching bright-green stones.
You pause to think, then you give Dash the stone that’s black as his hair. One-Shot gets the clear, star-white stone, just as he always takes a clear shot; and Wombat, who knows the ways of the bush, gets the dark-forest-green gem.
‘Mine’s a fire opal,’ says Da. ‘Williams, that’s a ruby.’
Da inspects all the stones and names them: there’s a fire opal, a ruby, two emeralds, a diamond, an onyx, and the dark-green malachite.
Although you were never schooled properly in reading and writing, thanks to your lessons during the voyage to Van Diemen’s Land, as you think about the names of the gems, and the sounds of the letters, a puzzle starts to come together in your mind …
F for fire opal, R for ruby, EE for the two emeralds… then diamond, onyx and malachite…
‘It spells freedom!’ you exclaim.
‘SO IT DOES,’ breathes Sean in wonder.
‘How about that, then,’ mutters Wombat.
‘For as long as we keep these stones,’ announces Da, ‘may we ride free together, united against all of those who would take our freedom away.’
You know that life from here on will be tough. You may end up with your neck in the hangman’s noose. You may get sick of life on the saddle and in the scrub. You may end up shooting a soldier, or being shot.
But your grassy bed, Da’s warm, strong hand on your back, the snuffling horses, the wheeling stars, and Sean’s sweet songs by the crackling campfire are all you need right now.
Oh, the girl, she was brave, and bright as the sun…
… and none who tried could catch her.
For her heart, it was filled with the song that it sung…
… of freedom, freedom forever.
You resolve to keep quiet, for Da’s
