All I knew was, I was trying (unsuccessfully) to not think about the thing in the library, the broken teacup and now that perfume out there in the rainforest the day before. Cups don’t just fall off tables like that, they just don’t. And that time in the library, I could have sworn Mum was there.
As for the smell, last night I googled places where jasmine grew – apparently not in a rainforest. At least not this kind of jasmine. When I’d smelt it, I was sure Leanne could smell it too; it was so pungent, so sweet, but she had looked at me blankly. It wasn’t just that it was jasmine. It was Mum’s perfume, exactly as I remember it. Noses have very accurate memories.
The day before, on the way home from the search, Kevin had smoked with furious intent, as if he were being timed in some bizarre new Olympic sport. He didn’t speak. With my feet up on the seat, I’d leant against the window and smelt my forearms and underarms – sneakily so Kevin wouldn’t see – thinking maybe it was me making the jasmine smell, which was stupid because I hadn’t even had time to put on any deodorant that morning.
If Greenwood knew I was smelling weird smells and seeing weird things, he would have called for the white van, dosed me up on tranquillisers, locked me up and thrown away the key. I knew I was kidding myself. Mum was the only one who wore jasmine. I’d always thought it was sickly sweet, too strong, but Mum had splashed it on every day – she said it was important to have a nice aura around you. But what her aura was doing out there in the rainforest yesterday, I couldn’t tell you.
When we’d arrived home after the search Kevin had announced he would be in the garage. He’d burst through the screen door and marched over, his long afternoon shadow jerking behind him like it wanted to tug itself away. I’d watched him unlock the padlock on the garage doors and disappear inside.
He didn’t even ask me if I was alright. Didn’t he notice that there was something wrong with me?
‘Right,’ I’d said, to no-one. ‘I’ll just go inside, shall I?’
The hairs on the back of my neck had prickled as I’d walked toward the front steps of the house. I’d looked to the left, where I could see Mum’s chair. It stood facing the orchard. Empty. Forever empty.
Brian had said the search for Dylan today was to begin at seven. There was still no sign of Kevin, and as I got dressed into jeans and a T-shirt I started to wonder if he’d gone without me. I went over to my window, thinking he could’ve been out in the garage again, and noticed the ute wasn’t parked in the usual spot. I looked at my phone. It was ten minutes to seven.
He’d definitely gone without me.
I ate a banana and wandered around the house for a while, cursing Kevin. He hadn’t even asked me if I was coming. He’d just left me behind. I suppose it served me right. I searched the kitchen bench, riffling through the bowl of papers and mail, thinking maybe he’d left me a note. Nothing.
The cat had abandoned me for a sunny shelf but Merv appeared at my heels, feeding off my anxiousness. Finally, I pulled out a chair and sat, face in hands, listening to the ticking of the kitchen clock and the mournful mooing of one of the cows. I could hear a helicopter in the distance, getting closer. The screen door rattled and I looked up, expecting to see someone standing there. But it was just the fingers of a breeze that had grabbed the flimsy door and shaken it on its hinges.
I didn’t want to be alone in the house. I stood up and grabbed my hat and water bottle. If I hurried, I could get to the gorge car park in twenty minutes.
I jogged across the orchard and climbed through the barbed wire fence that marked the boundary of the farm. Fallen sticks and undergrowth cracked and broke under my sneakers as I followed the old logging track that wound through the rainforest. Other tracks crisscrossed through the forest, one coming from the Harrisons’ place, where Matt lived, and one from the Koslovskis’. Mum had said there was a massive network of old roads and if you followed them you could end up in the ranges to the north where people who’d dropped out of society were living. That thought alone made me feel uneasy.
Eventually the track joined up with the path that followed along the creek. After walking for around ten minutes, I heard voices in the distance. I came to the waterhole area near where Mum had done her painting and just upstream from there I found Brian, a walkie-talkie barking in his hand.
‘Hello, Sunny,’ he said. ‘Where did you spring from?’
‘I walked here. Through the forest track.’ I looked around. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Down there, near the creek.’ Brian pointed and I saw Kevin, Leanne and Jim picking their way over the rocks.
‘What about further upstream, where we were yesterday?’ I asked.
‘There’re some people up there, but we thought we should look around here too.’
‘What about the other groups?’
‘Most’ve gone west, near where Kevin and Gary camped, to have another look. A farmer reckons he saw smoke coming from that direction last night.’
‘Do you think it could be Dylan?’
‘I don’t know, maybe. But there are people out here all the time. Could be anyone.’
I nodded.
‘Come on,’ Brian said. ‘I’ll show you the best way down.’
I followed Brian toward the creek. People had worn rough tracks to get to the water, but you had to climb over rocks and tree roots. The
