Though it’s a summer’s day, the water is icy, and it squeezes the breath out of your chest as you sink, fighting your way through a mess of rising cloth and bubbles. You can’t see Sarah below you until you push your own skirts out of the way.
Your clothes are dragging you down. You fight to quell the panic rising in your chest, and kick to the surface to snatch a mouthful of air before the weight of your skirts sucks you under again.
Far below you, you see Sarah, her face blue in the dim underwater light, bubbles rising from her slack mouth. You dive towards her, deep into the inky blackness. Your lungs begin to burn, crying out for more air, but at last your hand clenches around Sarah’s hair.
You begin to pull and kick upwards with every ounce of strength you have. You can see the sky far above you: the distant sun playing on the surface; some coloured patches that might be people leaning over the edge of the docks.
Your eardrums pop, and you realise that although you are yanking at Sarah and kicking with all your strength, you are sinking deeper, dragged down by her weight and the weight of both of your clothes. With your free hand, you try desperately to tear some of the clothes from your body, but it is useless.
A rope! Someone has thrown a rope over the edge of the docks, and it is drifting down through the water towards you. You snatch at it, but in doing so, Sarah’s hair slips from the grasp of your other hand, and she sinks out of sight into the blackness. You choke with a silent scream, and the water forces its way into your nostrils.
Someone jerks the rope upwards, and your weakened hand cannot hold on. The rope pops from your grasp. Your arms and legs windmill and kick uselessly, weakly now, until the last of your breath escapes you, and you can fight no more. Your body goes slack and sinks deeper. Your lungs fill with water. Your mind fills with dying bursts of light as you tumble down to rest on the mud at the bottom of Hobart Town’s harbour.
To return to your last choice and try again, go to scene 37.
You take a few steadying breaths. For once, you’re the calm one, and Sarah the impulsive runaway. The realisation slowly comes over you that you won’t have to tell too many lies to get out of this. You can, more or less, be honest, with only a few details changed, and you’ll be free.
You walk right up to Mr Tilsome and the constable, and curtsey. A few weeks of eating well at Lachlan’s has returned you to a healthy weight, and your bonnet covers your cropped hair.
‘This man claims you ran away from your work with him,’ snarls the constable.
‘I’m afraid I did, sir,’ you say, humbly. ‘It was the wrong thing to do, I know. I was looking for my da, but I was caught and taken to gaol.’
‘I see. Go on,’ says the constable sceptically.
‘I spent some time in the Hobart Town gaol; then a gentleman chose me to work for him. I’m now in the employ of a Mr O’Riordan at Crayfish Point, and today I’m on an errand for him, to pick up some new robes for the parish priest.’
‘She’s lying!’ cries Mr Tilsome, and his hand darts out and rips away the brown paper from the parcel you’re carrying. He stops short when he sees the priest’s robes.
‘Priest’s robes, just as she says,’ states the constable.
‘I can prove I spent my time in prison, too, sir – my hair’s been cut, you see?’ You pull back your bonnet. For once you’re glad of your spiky shorn hair.
‘Indeed it has. Very well. Mr Tilsome, I understand your anger at the girl’s disappearance, but I can’t arrest her. She has done her time behind bars, and is now in the employ of another man. Good day, sir.’
Your elation as you climb up into the cart to drive away is dampened when you see Sarah being led away by Mr Tilsome, who is tight-lipped with anger. Sarah looks back at you, desperately. You know how lonely she must be out in Bothwell. You miss her terribly, too. You want to run and hug her, but there’s nothing you can do right now.
I’ll come back for you, Sarah, you think. One day, we’ll live together as sisters again… if you’ll ever forgive me for abandoning you.
When you arrive back at Crayfish Point, flushed with triumph, Lachlan is standing in the doorway waiting for you. He has twisted one of his hankies into a knot, and he is shifting uneasily from foot to foot.
‘Well done,’ he says when he sees the parcel of robes. ‘That’s marvellous – you’re marvellous. But now… I have news.’
‘Bad news?’
‘No, it’s good! Well, it’s both, really. Come inside. Now, before I tell you, I want you to know something: I care for you … very much. I don’t want anything to happen to you … to us. Please remember that.’
‘Come on, Lachlan, what is it?’
‘I’ve had word from your father. He survived. He’s nearby, and … he’s a bushranger! He has a gang, and they’re camped out near here. I’ve promised to take you to him. Do you want to go?’
‘Do I want to go?’ you squeal. ‘Get into the cart this instant and get me to my da!’
As it turns out, you can’t take the cart along the narrow tracks you’ll need to follow, so you unhitch Lachlan’s horse from the cart, and ride together on its back through the ferny undergrowth at full speed.
Your body flows with the horse’s rhythm. The speed is breathtaking. You crash through streams and lean
