Dirt falling off that face. But her left hand explores too far – some pieces of archaeology should never be uncovered. Dirt falls away on the upper right side of the skull, from Violet Hook’s frontal bone, her high vertical plate, and there is a hole where the right side of her skull should be. There is no smooth bone bowl around her right eye. There is only dirt.
‘How do you do that?’ Aubrey asks.
‘I have a heart of stone,’ Molly asks. ‘I will never be afraid. I will feel no pain.’
‘There’s something wrong with you, child,’ Aubrey says.
‘I know,’ Molly replies.
Molly runs her eyes over her mother’s skeleton. It’s not her, she tells herself. It’s not her. It’s not her. She lingers on the chest bones. But it is her. She is here. She is down here, too. There is a thin sheet of worn dress material stuck to her upper chest bones. Her mother’s heart once beat beneath that fabric. Molly’s hands reach for the material. She will peel it away and she will know the truth. The night sky truth, not the day sky truth. Night skies tell no lies.
But then a voice from the surface. ‘Get away from her, Molly.’
Molly swings her head back over her shoulder. Her father, Horace, stands beside his brother at the edge of the grave, five feet above her. He holds a long pickaxe in his right hand. The sight of her father makes Molly snap out of her dream, snap out of her deep-grave fever. She reels back.
‘He was gonna shoot me, Dad,’ Molly says.
Aubrey howls. A frenzied guffaw. He slaps his knees grandly. He adopts the voice of a twelve-year-old girl. ‘“He was gonna shoot me, Dad!”’ he howls. He staggers to his left, finds his footing at the edge of the grave. Then his face goes dark in an instant. ‘Have you seen what your child has done?’ he asks, two hands on the rifle handle, balls of saliva gathering on his moustache.
‘I’ve seen what you done to Greta,’ Horace says. ‘You went too far this time. She came into town, Aubrey. She told the police. If we survive these Japs, they’ll be comin’ for ya.’
Horace takes in the scene. His gravedigger daughter. The open grave. His grave older brother. His grave shadow.
‘Your wheels ’ave come off the train tracks, brother,’ Horace says.
‘I’m teaching your child a lesson,’ Aubrey shouts.
‘You’ve gone too far, Aubrey,’ Horace replies. He stares at his brother while he speaks to his daughter. ‘You come up outta there, Molly.’
Molly moves towards him along the uneven surface, stepping on a glass box that breaks beneath her boots. Her father leans down and offers his right arm. Molly grips it with her right hand and is hauled to the surface with Bert the shovel in her left hand, her muddy boots tearing dirt from the grave walls.
‘Go back to the house, Molly,’ Horace says.
‘No,’ Molly says.
Horace turns to his daughter. Aubrey laughs.
‘I’m never going back inside that house,’ she screams. ‘It’s cursed. This whole graveyard is cursed.’
Molly spots her pan at Aubrey’s feet and she rushes for it. Pick it up, Molly, and run for your life. Dig, Molly, dig.
But Aubrey stops Molly in her tracks by swinging the gun barrel towards her chest. ‘You gonna attack me, Molly Hook?’ Aubrey asks. ‘You are brave, aren’t you? Braver than my sorry little brother here, that’s for certain.’ He waves the gun barrel. ‘Get over there beside your father.’
Father and daughter standing on the edge of Violet Hook’s grave. Aubrey points the rifle at them both, switching frantically between faces. ‘I was just trying to give the girl some answers,’ he says. ‘You know what I mean, little brother? Answers to the girl’s questions. Do you have any answers for her, little brother?’
Molly turns to her father, briefly puzzled by these words.
‘Let’s calm down for a second, Aubrey,’ Horace says. ‘You need to sleep this one off. Let’s go back to the house.’
‘No, thanks,’ Aubrey says. ‘Maybe the girl’s right. Maybe this place is cursed. Maybe you two are cursed. Maybe I’d be better off without you both. Maybe you’d be better off in that hole with Violet. Three pretty little faces all in a row.’
Molly watches her uncle’s eyes. His eyelids are closing on him involuntarily, his head’s rolling. He’s tiring.
‘I’m so fuckin’ sick of diggin’ holes with you two,’ Aubrey says. His eyelids drop down, open again. ‘I think I need to get out of the gravediggin’ business, don’t you? Get back into the gold-diggin’ business.’
Then the sound of engines in the sky. The sound of gas and death and war. The wasp of it. The tiger of it. Molly’s senses are sharpest and she looks up to the sky first. Her father looks up next and, lastly, Aubrey turns his eyes to the sky and his face lights up like he’s felt the breath of God and his mouth falls open and he laughs. He howls at the impossible sight of a Japanese air fleet moving as one perfect attack arrow across the vivid Darwin blue sky. His drink-skewed vision blurs and the terrible fleet doubles, triples, in number. And he thinks of locusts. He thinks of plague. He thinks of the great ending.
‘Insects,’ he says. ‘Buzzzzzzzzz,’ he screams at the locusts. ‘Buzzzzzzzzz,’ he screams at the sky. And he howls with laughter. He’s still smiling when he turns his face back towards Molly Hook and the flat back blade of Bert the shovel smashes into the left side of his face.
More arrows of Japanese aircraft now and Molly rushing for her grandfather’s prospector’s pan. She scoops it up from the ground and dashes across the graveyard.
‘Get under the house,’ her father screams.
Aubrey Hook falls to his right, staggers for three paces then finds his footing again on a fourth. Blood runs from the inside of his left ear. His tomato-coloured
