I didn’t mention the lorazepam.
Martin didn’t need to know about that.
There was something veiled in his eyes as he watched me, which unsettled me further. “So shall we go up to Agnes, or not?”
“Sure we should. It’ll be fine—I’m fine. I want to see it now,” I lied. I was reluctant to displease him. Not on our first day back together.
THEN
ELLIE
A big grin cut across Martin’s face the moment I said I “wanted” to drive up to see the development right away. His eyes and body danced back to life, like those of a child who’d just been handed back a new and prized toy that had been in imminent danger of being confiscated.
“And I’ve got just the thing for that hangover!” he announced as he drew back the cover on the ute bed again, exposing a cooler box. He popped the blue lid off the cooler and like a magician pulled out two bottles of chilled cider. Beads of moisture slid down the outsides of the glass bottles. My thirst was suddenly ferocious.
“Hair of the dog.” He wiggled the bottles, his grin deepening to reveal his dimples, then cracked open a bottle and offered it to me. I took it and immediately glugged down a quarter of the contents as he opened his own.
“Got plenty more of these in the esky,” he said as he closed the cooler. “And wine. And roast chicken. Potato salad. French bread.” He clinked his bottle against mine. “Cheers and welcome home, babe. Here’s to our new life.”
We took long swallows together, climbed into the ute—me almost getting into the wrong side. We set our ciders in the cup holders, and Martin started the engine.
“We won’t be at Agnes long, I promise. We’ll be home before dinner.” He pulled into the road on the “wrong” side and tossed me another smile. “Besides, if you try to adapt to the new routine right away, it’ll help head off the jet lag.”
I took another deep swig of my cold cider, feeling the buzz of alcohol spreading fast through my weary lorazepam-addled veins and sleep-deprived brain. But he was right. Hair of the dog. It worked. And who cared about jet lag—this was our new world, a new adventure. And the development was the reason we’d come. I could sleep later.
Just go with the flow. No rules. Shape your own narrative.
But by the time we were on the Princes Highway and driving through a narrow and never-ending tunnel of monotonous gums with dry, drab, sharp-angled leaves, I’d finished my drink and was nodding in and out of a syrupy stupor. Martin put on the radio. Music played softly.
I must have drifted off deeply, because suddenly my head slammed against the window and I jerked awake in shock. My eyes flared open. I struggled to orient myself. We’d swerved to avoid roadkill. I winced and rubbed my face. My chin was sticky with dried drool. My body odor smelled strong. My face was sweaty. Martin cast me a quick glance. Something like distaste flitted through his features; then it was gone. Perhaps I’d imagined it. He returned his attention to the road, but I saw his hands fisting the wheel.
I sat in fuzzy silence for another several kilometers as the forest whizzed by. Occasional kangaroos and wallabies lay dead along the side of the road. A sick feeling filled my stomach. I should have insisted Martin take me home first.
“How far is it?” I asked as we passed yet another massacred roo, or whatever the tawny-colored creature was.
“I told you already. Agnes is about a twenty-five-minute drive north of Jarra.” His voice was cool. A sense of doom spread black and oily through my chest. My father used to use that same tone when I was unable to live up to his expectations.
I looked out the window, then jumped as a giant prehistoric thing with dragon wings over three feet in span came flapping down the side of the highway along the fringe of gums. It was followed by another, then a whole swarm. “What in the hell?” I spun around in my seat to watch them, my heart hammering.
“Flying foxes,” he said, voice clipped. “They’re a species of giant fruit bat. Largest flying mammal there is.” His gaze remained fixed on the road ahead, his neck muscles taut. “Bloody things started migrating into the region in swarms when some of the gums started to blossom early due to this weird hot weather. More than one hundred thousand at last count have set up camp in this area—like a fucking megabat epidemic.”
I blinked. I’d not heard Martin swear in casual conversation. Once again I noted the thickness of his Aussie accent, the changes in his features. Or was I seeing things crookedly through my haze of malaise? A thread of fear curled through me. Paranoia had been a side effect of my drug and alcohol abuse after I’d let Chloe slip through my hands and drown. I’d fought back from it. Maybe I should not have taken the sedatives on the plane. Maybe I would slip again.
“The shire has set up a task force to figure out how to deal with the buggers because they’re a protected species and you can’t just kill them. They shit over everything. Foul-smelling orange guano.”
I stared in horror as another mass of giant bats flapped along the line of gums where the trees had been cleared to make way for the road.
He slowed and put on the indicator as we approached a sign that pointed to the Agnes Basin. We turned off the highway and onto a smaller road that led toward the ocean. We passed a placard affixed to a post. It was torn and flapped in the wind. Letters big and
