Hindsight (15 page)

‘I need to be sure Gabby’s safe first.’

Mira scratched her cheek, as another thought occurred to her. ‘At least this explains why you wanted us both to stay safe inside the surf shop until you came back. You see danger everywhere now, don’t you?’

‘Getting framed, jailed and shot tends to do that. Look, I know it’s a stretch. I’m probably wrong — I hope I am — but three couples went to that party and now half are dead.’

‘Half dead,’ Mira said, wishing she could make him lighten up and back away from the whole mess. ‘Sounds like zombies.’

‘Be serious. You know what I mean. The others are headed for gaol — and yes, good riddance to them because they all testified against me. All except Gabby, who couldn’t testify one way or the other, because she didn’t go. But if she had gone to the party — Mira, if she had been there — I know for sure that she would have sided with the truth and me. Then I would have had a witness who could have backed up my alibi. I only needed one person to provide contradictory evidence and raise doubt. That’s all it would have taken to force a more thorough investigation.’

‘But you’re not worried about clearing your name. You know that will happen just as soon as the docs have proven that their new-fangled lie detector is infallible, regardless of whether the test subject is awake, cooperative or crazy. I mean, if they could tell my subconscious knew I could see the past, they can get to the truth of anything.’

‘That may not be fast enough for Gabby. Not if my gut instinct is correct.’

‘Gabby didn’t seem worried.’

‘Gabby only hears news through local gossip. At work she’s too busy, and at home she’s a hermit. She has no TV on her sloop, and no radio aside from her two-way.’

‘Surely local gossip should have been buzzing about three murders?’

‘Not likely. It happened on the mainland. Gabby and I may have attended the same uni as Chloe, but back then it was like being an expat in a foreign country.’

‘Then why didn’t you warn Gabby at the surf shop?’

‘Are you kidding? She’d try to speak to Dean — get his side of things — and then she’d be in trouble for sure, if not with the cops, with the killers.’

‘Or both,’ Mira conceded. ‘Unless your mum is dating the only good cop in Queensland.’

‘What makes you think there is one?’

Mira shrugged. She’d never met more than a dozen police in her whole life and they’d all been involved in tackling and restraining her to force her back to the ‘safety’ of whichever orphanage or psychiatric facility she’d escaped. None had ever listened to her side of the story no matter how much she struggled or screamed — not even Mel’s boyfriend, Detective Pete Innes-Grady, who’d been involved at least twice that she knew of.

Mira scratched her cheek, perplexed. ‘I still can’t see how I can help — unless we find out where Chloe died. If we can go there, and nothing is there to stop me from looking back to see who killed her — you know, like being under water or in a plane … But even then, even if we can get in, it might only help if it’s obvious that her death might still have implications for Gabby.’

‘I told you it was complicated.’

Mira laughed. ‘So this is the thing that’s been worrying you?’

Ben stroked her arm, startling her with a tingle of goosebumps.

‘It’s too much too soon,’ he said. ‘I knew it. I’m sorry, Mira, I just …’

‘You just touched me unexpectedly. That’s all. Don’t feel guilty, Ben. Not about this.’ She turned towards his voice, wishing she could see him and make sure he knew how much she trusted him. ‘Asking me to open my eyes to the past for you is no trouble. I have to do it anyway. It’ll make a nice change using it to help someone else instead of just surviving. We can go as soon as we know where.’

‘Thanks, Mira.’ He rubbed her arm more tenderly. ‘I don’t know what I did right in my life to deserve you.’

‘I’ll make a list. In the meantime, we need to find out exactly where Chloe died.’

‘Steiglitz is only a small village. Eight streets, tops — and we know
when
she died roughly, so maybe I could drive around while you look for ghosts of cops with flashing lights. Then we can work backwards from that to find her killers?’

Mira shook her head, preferring to stay as far away as possible from Steiglitz for as long as she could manage. That place was far too close to Serenity on Likiba, and she could feel the pull of her elastic shadow becoming stronger and tighter. ‘Starting anywhere near that area only helps if you’re confident those reports have any accuracy to them. I suggest we find somewhere that Chloe was alive yesterday, possibly waking up at home or wherever, and follow everything she did until the end. It can’t have happened too far into the day, or else how did the newspapers manage to make the late edition with the news of her death?’

‘You’re brilliant,’ Ben agreed. ‘I know where she lived.’

‘Great, then we can start right away.’ She made a move for his car, but he grabbed her round the waist.

‘Hold it,’ he said, keeping her longer and closer than he needed to. ‘You’ve already had a big day. Time to end it with a nice meal.’

Fredarick typed all night until his fingers bled.

His heart poured onto the pages as Braille dictation. Just notes at first. Connect the dots to find the outline for the larger story that was already in progress. No longer just fortune telling, he intensified his editing.

He took the first line and retyped it in the middle of a fresh page more succinctly:
Look behind you.
Then he folded the page into a paper plane, preparing to cast it into the winds of time and help trigger the coming tragedy before the enemy was ready — but he still needed a final touch to ensure it reached its destination in time: his angel’s cooperation.

With a kiss for luck, he launched it into the cold air of his dungeon, Sanchez catching it as he knew she would, before it pierced the flame of his candle.

It must land before noon,
he warned her in sign language, and knowing the clock in her office above had already chimed to mourn the passing of five in the morning.

Today?
she asked with her hands.
Why?

Because your trickery failed, my angel. As noble as your intentions may be, if you fail to send this final warning for her, there shall be no point in uttering a further word between us.

Sanchez opened the plane to read the message, her eyes widening at the sight of it. She glanced over her shoulder, then her expression darkened as if she could hardly believe it. She sighed and closed her eyes to read it the traditional way.

He watched the magic of her fingertips finding her place in his thoughts, and of his thoughts infiltrating her mind, and he shared the intimacy of the brief moment by mouthing along silently with her. Still, her face betrayed her feelings; a cocktail of astonishment, guilt and worry. She read it again.

Look behind her for what?

Trouble. Or worse if it arrives too late.

I’ll need a courier,
she said, coming to the foregone conclusion on time —
and I’ll expect to read the rest of your work today, along with at least a page every day for a week. Okay?

He nodded and watched her leave, then headed up to daylight too, keeping out of sight from her, knowing she’d place the call for a courier from her office — before changing her mind to take it herself.

M
ira stirred gently at the first blush of morning, keeping her eyes closed to make her first blissfully free sleep last as long as possible.

Blinking up at the dark blue sky, stained darker than usual by storm clouds obscuring the dawn, she became aware of the sour aftertaste of curry. It still plagued her despite scrubbing her teeth three times before bed in the bathroom on the second floor, which they all had to share. She’d used Ben’s personal supply of peroxide paste, which made her mouth feel squeaky clean as never before, but it hadn’t helped for more than an hour each time. She couldn’t find any regular or minty paste and didn’t dare to ask him about it, in case it made him feel guilty for not buying any when he’d picked up the bread and milk; especially when she should have thought of it herself.

At least she still had fond memories of the meal
before
she’d taken her first bite; so romantic on the beachside patio. Through the greenish-violet shades of yester-months, she’d been able to find an evening which allowed her to share the moment with Ben’s ghost to accompany his voice. He’d been eating alone that night, but she much preferred to see him that way than to listen only while sitting at an empty ghostly table, or worse, in his mother’s lap during one of their rare meals outside together. Interesting, too, that she hadn’t found him sharing a meal with any other girls at home, as far as she’d been able to see so far — aside from Gabby, and even that had been so long ago, they’d been gangly teenagers.

Dark clouds moved overhead, and she startled fully awake, realising that she should have been staring at the ceiling. Her glasses had fallen off during the night. Crazy to sleep with them on, she’d been told by staff at Serenity, but Matron Sanchez was the only one among them who’d learned her secret and could understand why waking without them could often be frightening.

Glancing down, she saw through her invisible bed and how high she was above the fog-shrouded sand-dunes — three storeys! She reached for the head of the bed to brace herself, but her hand found only empty air and she overbalanced; fell with a shriek and a thud off the corner, which she clung to like a drowning sailor to a life raft.

Disoriented in mid-air, and still clutching at invisible bed sheets, she realised she must have turned in the bed through the night and gone off the bottom end — something she never could have done at Serenity, where her metal bunk was so small in its stone corner and often fortified with rails, tight sheets and her nightly sedation. She didn’t dare to move for a long moment, paralysed by fear of falling further. Stretching cautiously with one foot, she edged around the bed, keeping fists full of the sheets until she found her lost glasses on the floor around the next corner.

Blue skies aged swiftly to greenish-violet, the stained ceiling reappeared above, the floor below, and she sighed with relief. Timber beams above and below never seemed so comforting. The bed, floor and windows appeared in the same instant, along with Ben’s ghost, sleeping soundly. Mesmerised by his peaceful expression, she watched him, aching to touch him. Shaping her hands around his handsome face, she imagined she could, and explored down his broad, bare chest to where the sheets had twisted lazily around his waist, which only served to make her ache all the more for him. Leaning over him, she bent closer to his yester-year cheek and closed her eyes briefly to deliver a kiss.

He flinched in his sleep, smiled and drifted away again, as if she really had crossed through dreams and time to join him; a coincidence, obviously, but one that helped to make the moment feel a little less hollow.

Look but don’t touch,
she reminded herself, for his sake more than her own. She couldn’t bear the thought of him getting hurt again, even if it was only his career, or the chance to resume it. Accusations of inappropriate behaviour between her as a state ward and him as her authorised escort would certainly be the fastest and easiest way to tear their relationship apart, and if Mel wasn’t such a devoted mother, Mira could easily imagine her as cruel enough to sabotage their relationship that way — if only it didn’t mean hurting his career in the same stroke.

Gabby was right, she decided. Mel was most likely to try driving them apart more subtly — ugly clothes, nuclear curry and reducing privacy — just the start, no doubt, but she’d be ready.

Mira adjusted the shade and intensity of her ‘hues’ until she recognised the shade of yesterday, by which time Ben’s ghost had long since disappeared. Opening the drawers under the bed, she grabbed a bundle of soft surf fashion, and leapt for the mezzanine’s spiral stairs, gliding one hand all the way down the rail to the second floor. Tiptoeing along the hall past the other bedrooms, she soon reached the communal bathroom, which seemed dark and empty to her.

Too dark inside for her to see without tripping. She switched on the light to help her in future and rolled the controls on her sunshades back through time until she found enough slow light from yester-weeks to see the mats and facilities.

The ghostly door blinked shut, while the invisible door creaked under her hand as if complaining that she should want to close and lock it again.

Sink to her left — toilet ahead, and a large shower cubicle in the corner, full of ghostly steam — and Ben! Through the yester-haze, she saw him. Naked, he was shampooing his hair in the shower. Suds foamed and clung in spongy rivulets down his well-toned body. He turned with his eyes closed to rinse most of it down his back, and her gaze slid down his chest, following the path of the waywardest rivulet ever lower.

‘Mira,’ he called from the other side of the door. ‘Is that you?’

Startled, she slipped against the sink.

‘Are you okay?’ He knocked twice as she scrambled to regain her feet.

‘I was fine until you scared me. Hang ten.’

Adjusting her sunshades, she fast-forwarded the ghostly Ben until he was clothed in jeans and a black shirt, and heading out for the day.

‘Picking up the surfing lingo already, hey? There’s time for your first lesson before breakfast, if you’d like?’

She opened the door only halfway, holding her silk sarong modestly high against her chest. ‘I thought you’d be keen to find Chloe’s killer?’

‘It’s barely 5am, and I never saw Chloe venture out before seven. Besides, that kind of time can be rewound if we miss it the first time.’ He leaned closer, and the alluring scent of his skin warned Mira that he’d spent at least some of the night sweating. ‘Is that what you wore for pyjamas?’

She nodded, twisting the thin material between her breasts, and hoping it wasn’t so thin he could see through it. ‘The surf shop had nothing with teddy bears.’

He chuckled, and the sound made her want to spread her fingers against his chest, feel the air moving inside him, and exhale softly against her cheek as his breath. But he moved unexpectedly, and she heard the quiet thudding of bare feet taking him away.

‘We’d better fix that later today,’ he said and then padded down the stairs.

Was he dressed already?

Braving the pain of catching up to him through time, she adjusted her sunshades, turning purple haze into deeper violet until she rediscovered yesterday, and saw herself climbing the stairs behind him as he led her to his bedroom for the first time. She saw his mother peeking out from her own room after they’d passed — and saw her creeping out to follow them.

Hours closer. Minutes. Until the increasing speeds of light pierced her retinas like hot needles. Straining to keep her eyes open, she glimpsed Ben. Bare-chested. No sling. Long pyjama pants, headed towards her. He paused at her door, his ghostly face drawing closer to hers.

Mira,
she read from his lips.
Is that you? Are you okay?

‘Argh!’ She cried out and clamped her eyes shut. Glasses off. Fists into eye sockets. She rubbed and rubbed, collapsing on the floor and still rubbing until the agony had dulled to a bearable ache.

Shrugging a sudden weight off her shoulders, she realised it was Ben’s arm.

‘Hey, I’ve got you.’ He lifted her to her feet.

‘How did you …? You were downstairs!’

‘I didn’t know I could run that fast either.’ He hugged her against his bare chest. ‘What happened?’

‘I think, ah …’ Shaking as he set her back on her feet, she could feel the length of his firm body through her thin sarong, and imagined him naked again, sudsing, rinsing. She couldn’t get the images out of her head, even with her eyes clamped shut as tightly now as she could manage.

‘Don’t laugh,’ he said, rubbing her arm. ‘I had a nightmare you fell off a cliff.’

She blushed and pushed away from him. ‘Just the bed. It wasn’t there a hundred years ago.’ Her hand trembled as she handed him the sunshades. ‘Could you change them for me, please? Brownish-blue, or maybe a nice greenish-lavender?’ With luck, he wouldn’t have the same knack of homing in on his naked yester-ghost.

‘That’s years ago, or months. Am I right?’

She nodded, keeping her eyes closed. ‘It’s more confusing if I can’t see all the furniture as it is now, but the slower light does help my headache to leave faster.’

‘Painkiller?’

‘I’d need to be dying first.’

‘Slow light, huh?’ Ben scratched his stubbly cheek. ‘So why not leave off the shades for a while? Last century isn’t such a bad place to be stuck, now that you know what you’re seeing.’

‘Not until I’m on the ground floor. It’s still a dark night there anyway — and too blurry, as if being blinded by the past isn’t curse enough.’

‘Oh, yeah. Myopia too. Sorry, I forgot. Blind and short sighted don’t usually go together.’

‘Neither does blind and lip-reading. Hang on, I only noticed it myself just now, but these new glasses make things clearer as well as changing the days. Not perfectly clear, but much better.’

‘Prescription?’ Ben suggested. ‘That makes sense. They look blurry to me and I’ve got twenty-twenty — and the docs also had access to details of all the glasses we tried with them, and some of them were prescription shades.’

‘Seems like years ago,’ she sighed.

‘Okay, here’s lavender.’ He pushed the sunshades gently but firmly into place.

Suspended by the invisible floor, she glanced down to see the foundations of the house pouring out of a concrete truck below her. ‘Woah!’ She teetered, dizzy from the height. ‘That’s too pale.’

Ben’s arm caught her yet again. ‘You need training wheels.’

‘Yeah, big ones.’ She pulled away and steadied herself. ‘It would be easier if these things came with pre-set time settings like one day ago, one week, a year and so on. But I guess I’m the only one who can figure out which colour is when.’ She frowned, knowing how tedious the process would be to work through every shade and colour in the spectrum. The current shade seemed frustrating enough, because she could see a man down there, the spitting image of Ben. Watching the same scene in history replay more than once required her to go back with a slightly different shade as time kept moving. ‘The house is gone but I’m hovering over the foundations.’ She could see a large concrete truck reversing down the track with its slide extended, preparing to expel its contents. ‘When was this place built?’

‘January, thirty-two years ago — with barely a month to spare before I was born, so my father once told me. He’d been branching from ferries into sand mining, but then I came along and changed everything — for the worse, I dare say. My mother was nineteen when she had me, and all they had for a home before that was the old sand miner’s shed they demolished to make way for this place.’

‘You look just like him.’ She saw no sign of his mother yet, though.

Mira toggled forward through the years, using the tiny rolling mouse controls and watching walls form, his parents move in and hustle about the house, up and down the stairs as their baby became a boy; soon joined by another small swaddle which sprouted pigtails.

‘You had a sister?’

‘Cousin,’ Ben replied sadly. ‘My aunt and uncle drowned in a ferry accident, and my parents took in Tina as a baby.’

In moments she was a toddler, a teenager and gone.

‘She died on her fifteenth birthday,’ he said. ‘Broke her neck water skiing.’

‘Oh! Ben, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—’

‘Don’t,’ he said, rubbing her arm more slowly. ‘Don’t apologise. I’d give anything to see her alive again — to see what you see. She was so full of energy. We’re not the kind of family that bothered much with photographs. Just a few baby pics and if you come forward enough in time, you’ll see all of them on the wall behind me. There’s only six.’

Mira shivered. She’d already noticed them: six happy snaps which froze their ghostly faces forever in time. Yet rolling back through the years again, she could plainly see the slow light still emitting and reflecting off Tina’s living body; a slim, bikini-clad teenager jogging into the bathroom to brush her hair and scrub her braces.

‘She’s still here, Ben. The light of her life is still as real as it ever was. Maybe I can show you?’ She laid open her palm as an invitation for him to hold her hand, and when he did, she led him into the bathroom and stopped him adjacent to the sink and mirror.

‘Should I pinch myself first?’ Ben said playfully. ‘Next time we see the docs, we need to ask how the slow light can keep up with the rotation of the Earth as it moves through space. Maybe it’s anchored somehow within the atmosphere by magnetic or gravitational fields.’

‘Why don’t you ask how to work out their string theory formula while you’re at it? Quit fretting over details. Just close your eyes, and relax.’ The irony of her telling him to temper his nerves made her smile as she raised his hand to Tina’s ghostly face. ‘Palm out, fingers spread, and let yourself become aware of all the subtle energy in the air.’

Holding him by the wrist, she guided his palm around Tina’s face, and further around the shape of her ghost. ‘This is her cheek. The back of her head. Her neck … shoulder …’

‘Yes!’ he cried. Taking control, he found his way back to her cheek by himself, where Mira let go of him. ‘I can feel her! I can … I can … hug her! She’s right here at the sink! I think she’s … I think she’s brushing her teeth!’