She marches towards me, and the closer she gets the clearer it becomes that I’m not seeing things.
I smile quizzically in what I hope is a disarming way and raise my hand hello, but Mum doesn’t smile.
Students and parents and teachers melt out of her way and I am about to be incinerated, Dad too, for my unruly behaviour, my spectacle-making, my refusal to know when to stop, for being too much.
But Mum’s expression isn’t warpath, it’s soft. It’s soft like ice-cream and sorrowful and full of pain. There’s compassion on her face, and regret and fear and there’s only one thing that could give her that face. I saw it when Grandad died and here it is again.
My face gets it first, my lips snarl, and then the knowledge rolls down my body in a sickening oily wave. Somewhere, in some other part of my brain, I register a Dad-shaped smudge coming through the front doors, but I don’t pay it much note because—
It’s Yin.
Not good news.
They’ve found her, but not really her.
An emptiness, a shell.
They’ve found a body.
I know I know I know what tsunami is about to crash over us, not just me but the whole year level the whole school rippling outwards, crashing into every worried person in this city.
I push off the wall and run.
Mummy.
I get so close I could reach out to her and the realisation hits my legs and my knees melt to nothing. Her mouth an O, her arms out, but I’m too far away still and I feel the hard floor and the bite of carpet for only a millisecond before darkness comes.
DAY 62
The story unfolds on our TV screen in gritty blue pixels, as if it’s another shaky scene from Devil Creek. A windswept reporter in a parka stands in the foreground, while behind her there are police cars and people in dark clothes and hi-vis vests.
‘The body of sixteen-year-old Yin Mitchell was found around 4 p.m. yesterday by a park ranger in the Broken Ranges State Park in Melbourne’s far west, cementing what has been suspected for a long time: that this is a homicide investigation.’
I can’t help drawing in a sharp breath, even though this has all been mentioned in the morning news. It looks so unremarkable, this scrappy paddock, the run-down picnic facilities.
‘Should I turn it off?’ Mum squeezes my hand, hard, and we lock eyes. She let me stay home today, even though classes were still on. Attendance was optional, not just for Year Ten but the whole school. I wonder how many girls showed up.
‘If I don’t find out the details now, I’ll look online later anyway. I want to know what happened, otherwise I’ll just be making things up in my head.’
‘I can’t believe it’s come to this.’ Mum looks as shaky as I feel. ‘I don’t know how I would go on living if anything happened to you or Sam.’
The reporter goes over the timeline of Yin’s abduction, accompanied by computer graphics showing dates and places. When it’s laid out so clinically like that, this ending seems inevitable, but there are no words for how unreal it all feels.
Arnold curls warmly over my feet. Just over two months ago, Mum and I sat in this very same position and watched Yin’s abduction unfold like a bad dream. Sam isn’t here this time. Dad has taken him to soccer practice and he’s having a sleepover at Dad and Jarrod’s house.
‘Several pieces of evidence have been removed from the site today, and the police will continue their search tomorrow. Broken Ranges State Park is popular with hikers and rock climbers. Police are calling for anyone who has witnessed any suspicious activity in the area in the last six months to please contact them via the Operation Panopticon hotline.’
A police detective appears on the screen to talk about something to do with the post mortem and forensics and bringing the killer to justice but suddenly I’m full of too many awful details so I switch the TV off myself.
The exhibition and the art prize seem inconsequential now. The argument I had with Natalia doesn’t matter either, none of it’s important. I swear I’ll never complain about homework and acne and bad marks and not finding the right jeans ever again. I swear I’ll never be anything but patient and nice and loving towards Mum and Sam. And Dad too.
‘Have you heard anything from Natalia today?’ asks Mum. I told her that Natalia and Yin were childhood best friends, told her about what had happened at the photo shoot. Mum said it sounded like Natalia was experiencing the after-effects of trauma.
‘No.’ I almost messaged her this morning, but something stopped me. ‘What do you think I should do?’
‘Send her your love and thoughts,’ Mum says. ‘Let her know you’re thinking about her. And then give her time.’
DAY 63
When I finally let someone into my dark bedroom, it’s Liv.
‘Don’t expect good conversation.’ I immediately go back to my bed and get under the doona.
Liv follows me under there. ‘Not here for the conversation, just the snuggles.’
I pretend to complain and push her off but her skinny arms are tattooed tentacles and I eventually give in and let myself sink against her. I don’t know how she can look so sharp and hard but in reality be so massively soppy.
Once I give in to her, something inside me breaks and I cry again for the millionth time since Mum interrupted my protest to tell me the news early, before anything was officially released, before it hit the news. Which seemed cruel and unnecessarily humiliating at the time, but was probably a good idea.
Liv waits out several waves of tears and also has the good sense not to mention that I’ve barricaded myself in my
