His daughter was supposed to be here, and she wasn’t. She was supposed to be here, with him. She might be late, a rational voice barely whispered, but then he’d seen the way she’d been looking at him lately. It was a look he recognized well. The same look he’d seen five years earlier. A look that said, enough. Good-bye.
He felt an acid wave surge through him, and suddenly he was slamming open her wardrobe door. Her backpack was gone from its usual spot. The shelves showed one or two gaps in the neatly folded clothes. Deacon knew the signs. Her sneaking around. Keeping secrets. He’d missed them once before. Not again. He wrenched drawers out of the dresser, upending the contents on the floor, his beer spilling on the carpet as he rifled through for clues. Suddenly, he stopped still. He knew with cold certainty where she’d be. The same place her bloody mother used to run.
Little bitch, little bitch.
He staggered back to the living room, hauled a reluctant Grant to his feet, and thrust the truck keys at him.
“We’re going to get Ellie. You’re driving.”
Little bitch, little bitch.
They took a couple of cans for the road. The sun burned orange as they tore along the dirt tracks toward the Falks’ place. No way was she leaving. Not this time.
He was wondering what he would do if it was already too late when he caught a glimpse, and his heart jumped in his throat. A single sudden movement as a pale T-shirt and familiar flash of long hair disappeared into the tree line beyond the Falks’ place.
“She’s there.” Deacon pointed. “Heading toward the river.”
“I didn’t see anything.” Grant frowned, but he pulled the truck to a stop.
Deacon jumped out, leaving his nephew behind as he ran across the field and plunged into the shadows of the trees. His vision was tinted red as he stumbled along the path in pursuit.
She was bending over by an odd-shaped tree when he caught her. Ellie heard the noise too late and looked up, the perfect o of her mouth gaping wide in a scream as he grabbed her hair.
Little bitch, little bitch.
She wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t bloody leave this time. But she was writhing, he noticed through his haze, and it was making it hard to hold her. So he clubbed her with an open palm, around the head. She staggered and fell backward, landing with a soft groan on the edge of the bank, her hair and shoulders dipping into the black river water. Her eyes were looking at him in that way he recognized, and he thrust a hand under her chin until the murky water covered that face.
She’d fought when she realized what was happening. He stared at his own eyes reflected back at him in that dark river and held her harder.
He’d had to promise the farm to Grant as they searched the bank in the dying light for stones to weigh her down. He had no choice. Especially once his nephew found the note with Falk’s name on it in her pocket. Suggested it might be a useful item to leave in Ellie’s room. They searched until the last of the light disappeared, but they never did find her backpack.
It was only much later, when he was alone that first night and for many nights to come that Mal Deacon wondered if he’d meant to hold his daughter quite so tightly.
Falk sat for a long time after reading Ellie’s words, staring out at the empty river. At last, he shut the diary and zipped it back into the bag with the other possessions. He stood and slung the backpack over his shoulder.
The sun was gone, and night had fallen around him, he realized. Above the gum trees, the stars were bright. He wasn’t worried. He knew the way. As he walked back to Kiewarra, a cool breeze blew.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I had never realized how many people were involved in bringing a novel to life, and I am truly grateful to the many people who have helped me along the way.
A big thank-you to my editors, Christine Kopprasch and Amy Einhorn at Flatiron Books, Cate Paterson at Pan Macmillan, and Clare Smith at Little, Brown, who have elevated the book through their intelligent notes, insight, and advice. Thank you for offering me such a wonderful opportunity as a debut author.
I am very grateful to all who worked so hard to get this book ready and onto the shelves, including the various talented copyeditors, designers, and marketing and sales teams.
I feel lucky every day for the constant support and tireless work of my agents, Clare Forster at Curtis Brown Australia, Alice Lutyens and Eva Papastratis from Curtis Brown UK, Daniel Lazar at Writers House, and Jerry Kalajian at the Intellectual Property Group. They have gone above and beyond at every turn.
Thank you to the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne and the judges, organizers, and supporters of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. The award is an invaluable opportunity for emerging writers, and winning in 2015 gave me a key that opened a thousand doors.
To get a book published, I had to write it first, and for that I will always be indebted to my fellow writers on the Curtis Brown Creative 2014 online course. Thank you for the wisdom of your collective talent; this book almost certainly would not exist in this form without you. Special thanks to teacher Lisa O’Donnell, my friend Edward Hamlin, and course director Anna Davis.
And thanks and love, of course, to my family, Mike, Helen, Michael, and Ellie Harper, for making books such an important part of our life. And to my lovely husband, Peter Strachan, who always believed in this novel.