Greta shrugs. ‘Poor girl wasn’t thinkin’ straight,’ she says. ‘That’s what men can do to ya, Molly. Drive a girl bonkers; make her wanna go sleep forever in the nearest brook.’ Greta looks into the clear creek water.
Then she turns to Molly, realises the girl has invested more in this question than humour could return for her. ‘God would take Ophelia in, don’t you worry,’ Greta says, nodding. ‘I reckon He’d know she deserved a proper burial and the only thing she didn’t deserve was some of those fellers in her life.’
Molly smiles weakly.
‘You think there’s more good fellers in the world than bad fellers?’ Molly asks.
‘Oh, there’s plenty of good fellers in this world,’ Greta says.
‘Like who?’
‘Romeo Montague,’ Greta smiles.
Molly smiles, too. ‘I like him,’ she says. Then she looks up to the blue sky. ‘I reckon my mum didn’t deserve some of the fellers in her life.’ She looks over at Greta now.
‘Yeah, I reckon you’d be right there, Mol’,’ Greta says.
‘One of Ophelia’s gravediggers was saying this thing about whether or not she went into that water or if that water came to her,’ Molly says. ‘I wonder about that with my mum. Did she go to that grave in Hollow Wood or did life bring the grave to her?’
‘Life’s always bringin’ the grave to us, kid.’
‘Yeah, but why bring it so early to some and so late to others?’
‘I’m afraid Hamlet’s mum was right about all that, Mol’,’ Greta says.
‘I forgot what she said about it.’
‘She said all that lives must die,’ Greta says. ‘And she said we all know that shit’s common.’
‘That shit’s comin’?’ Molly ponders.
‘Common,’ Greta clarifies. ‘That shit’s all too common.’ Greta drags on her smoke, rests her head back on a rock. ‘But I guess it’s always comin’, too.’
*
The silver road bends through a forested gully and then a brief canyon lined with hanging five-fingered ferns that look to Molly like a thousand little green hands reaching out of the rock face. She tests the echo of her voice and it bounces through the canyon.
‘Marlene Sky,’ she hollers between two hands.
Birds fly out of the canyon, startled by the noise. Rainbow bee-eaters, hooded parrots, bustards and two northern rosellas with black, white and blue-violet wings.
Molly and Greta can feel and smell the humidity of the north. Everything sweats. Everything is damp. The walls of the canyon are smooth and stained black by water run-off. Greta’s saddle shoes slip on wet, slimy rocks and she fights to fill her lungs in the thick air and she doesn’t feel like smoking so much in these strange places.
The silver road meanders on through great green palms shaped like wood screws stuck in the earth and passes a great sandstone outcrop that Molly sees as a giant wombat, except the wombat wears a jagged battle helmet on its head with shards of sandstone jutting abruptly from the top in case the wombat’s unlikely battle foes – echidnas dressed in chainmail, possums wearing platemail – choose to leap atop its head.
Molly pauses to stare at a majestic green emperor dragonfly caught and tangling itself further in the sticky web of a St Andrew’s Cross spider. The dragonfly looks to Molly like something flown by the Wright brothers, with a torso made of what seems to be some rare kind of soft velvet pea beaded on a black string, and a scorpion’s tail and vast wings that are clear but somehow shimmer with purple light as the dragonfly flaps in fear of being so close to the web’s master builder.
‘The dragonfly’s still alive,’ she calls to Greta, who has stopped to scratch the back of her calves with a stick. ‘The spider’s comin’ to get him now,’ Molly says. ‘I’m gonna pull the dragonfly out.’
‘You can’t do that!’ Greta says. ‘That spider probably hasn’t eaten a meal in days and it’s gone to all that trouble to build a web to catch some lunch.’
‘Does it have to eat something so pretty?’ Molly asks.
‘Don’t think spiders give a damn about pretty, Molly,’ Greta says.
‘They just haven’t seen a Carole Lombard film yet,’ Molly says. ‘I’m gonna pull the dragonfly out.’
‘How could you be so cruel?’ Greta responds. ‘I reckon a dragonfly would be better than rump steak to the average spider, and you’re gonna come along and rip that poor spider’s lunch away just as it’s tucking its serviette down its shirt front. What sort of monster are you, Molly Hook?’
*
At a small freshwater spring Molly and Greta stop to share a can of corned beef and refill the water bag. Molly scoops her half of the corned beef onto a plate fashioned from a strip of smooth paperbark and sits on a flat rock by the spring.
Greta complains of a throbbing pain in her lower back. She slips off her emerald dress, turns her back to Molly and asks her to inspect her lower spine. Molly places her paperbark plate of corned beef on the flat rock, walks over to Greta and immediately spots two fat leeches sucking their way along the top lining of the actress’s underpants. There’s another leech crawling up the back of her left thigh.
‘Leeches,’ Molly says.
‘What?’ Greta gasps. ‘How many?’
‘Three,’ Molly says.
Greta executes a strange shuffle that makes her look like she’s barn dancing. ‘How big are they?’ she asks, panicked.
‘Well, judging by their size I’d say they’ve had main course and they’re progressing to dessert.’
‘Get them off!’ Greta howls.
‘Nah,’ Molly says.
‘What are you talking about, “Naaahh”?’ Greta exclaims. ‘Get the bloody bloodsuckers off me, Molly!’
‘You’re best to just let them have a feed and then they’ll drop off all by themselves,’ Molly says.
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘It’s not. They keep all this filth inside their stomachs, and if I was to go ripping them off halfway through a meal, there’s a chance some of that filth could get stuck inside your open suck wounds.’
‘Suck wounds?’ Greta repeats.
‘Oh dear,’ Molly whispers.
‘What?’
‘One just crawled on
