Chapter One

January 1996

Bella barked once—a short, toneless cough that made Nadeen start. She turned from her perch halfway up the stepladder where she was about to attach yet another poster to the wall.

“What’s the matter, Bell-bell?” A rhetorical question because the elderly Cavalier King Charles spaniel was as deaf as a post. Still, her barking was rare. “It’s not like you to make a fuss about nothing, eh?” The black-and-tan dog sat alert in her padded basket and stared toward the front of the shop. Nadeen followed her line of sight and spotted someone peering through the glass front door.

She tucked a rebellious dark curl behind an ear and sighed. Hot and tired, and with a long list of tasks awaiting her attention before she could open the gift shop, the last thing she needed was some busybody wasting her time. Sorely tempted to ignore the visitor, she dangled the poster she was trying to secure with one hand and felt the ladder shift sharply. Spooked, she clambered down, spread the poster on the cluttered counter and dusted off her faded khaki chinos on the way.

A blast of searing late January air smothered her breath. To the wide-eyed girl fidgeting with her backpack, Nadeen said, “We’re not open yet. Should be by Friday.”

“Sorry. Are you the owner? Could I have a chat?”

Nadeen took pity on the ethereally pretty, yet awkward young thing who looked to be in her midteens. “Yes, I am. What for? Come in out of this ridiculous heat.” She stepped back, let the girl shuffle past her and quickly secured the door and made her way back to the counter. Her visitor took long, loose steps behind, then stalled in front of a large, colourful poster of Sesheta, Egyptian patron goddess of books. The girl put her hands together, as if in prayer, and stared.

Impatient yet amused, Nadeen said, “So, young lady. How can I help?”

Catlike golden eyes caught her attention, then dropped away. “Sorry. I’m looking for work experience in Toodyay village.” She spoke in gulped sound bites. “Just until school goes back in February. I don’t expect to be paid. Just, I’d love the experience.” She glanced around, rhythmically strumming the nails of one hand against the other hand’s. “I love your shop. There’s nothing like it anywhere around here. It’s awesome.”

With a polite smile, Nadeen nodded. “Thank you. How about you tell me your name and age. And what year you’re in.”

“Sorry. I’m Melanie Chidlow. Everyone calls me Mel. I’m nearly eighteen and I’ll be in year twelve. And I’m honest and reliable.”

Nadeen’s chocolate eyes glinted and narrowed. “I’ll have to take your word for that. Tell you what. How about you come in on Sunday, say nine a.m., and I’ll show you around. We can have a chat about how you might fit in. Okay? Now off you go. I’ve heaps to do before opening.”

They walked together to the door. Nadeen said, “Must say, I’m impressed with your initiative. It takes courage to make a cold call at your age. Do your parents know you’re doing this?”

“Sort of. My mum told me to find a job or work experience. Anything to get me out of the house for the rest of the holidays, she said.”

With a wide grin, Nadeen shooed Mel outside. “Congratulations, job done! I’ll see you Sunday.”

Dusk deepening into night, it was seven thirty p.m. when Nadeen unlocked the front door to the vintage fibro cottage in Ellery Place. She let Bella trot in ahead, switched on the light and the air-conditioning system, and stooped to detach the dog’s lead. It had been a mere seven-minute walk from the shop to home, yet she was too tired to think for very long about anything. Leather wedges off, she relished the cool of the jarrah floorboards.

At the half-round side table in the hall, the phone’s answering machine was blinking red. Two messages. She stared at it and exhaled, sore shoulders sagging even lower. One caller was an easy guess, but the other? Against her better judgement, she hit the “play” button.

Her father’s cultivated voice held a teasing edge. “Surprise! Yes, I’m checking up on you. And I’ve some great news. Call me back, asap. Cheers.”

Eyebrows arching, she pressed the “play” button again.

“Nadeen? I have to talk to you.” Greer’s usually sonorous voice was commanding, then cracked into wheedling. “Absolutely have to. Don’t do this to me. It’s not fair. Ring me immediately.”

“Not fair. Seriously?” With a gleeful snort, she made a face at the machine storing her ex’s voice. “Nope. Not happening.”

She padded down to the spartan kitchen at the back of the house. Bella sat by the sink, looking hopeful.

“Room service is late tonight, old girl. Coming up.” Nadeen retrieved Bella’s food bowl from the sink’s drainer, tossed in a good handful of dog chow and set it on the floor. To the sound of gutsy crunching, she filled the kettle and clicked it on to boil. Light-headed from hunger, she peered in the fridge. “Looks like it’s pumpkin soup and toast again. I need to get groceries. Soon.” From a large saucepan, she ladled out congealed soup into a ’70s stoneware bowl and eased it into the microwave. A couple of slices of frozen bread made it into the toaster, flew out again some minutes later, well-browned, hit the plate, were slathered with butter, and laid on the rickety kitchen table next to the steaming soup.

Nadeen slumped in the creaking pine chair with her head in her hands, inhaled the heady soup aroma, nearly too tired to bother. The phone messages flew into her head and she swatted them away. Food was the first priority.

“Vegemite.” She hauled herself upright and rummaged in an overhead cupboard, found the jar, smeared a blob of sticky blackness on the toast, and took a huge bite. “Ah! Food of the gods. Butter and Vegemite make everything better.”

Stomach placated, she retired to the sitting room’s lumpy couch with a mug of tea, resting her protesting feet on the vinyl ottoman that had seen better days. Beside her, Bella curled up and buried her greying muzzle into Nadeen’s left hip. Sipping the welcome tea, she idly stroked the Cavalier’s super-soft and silky black coat, playing with the long tan strands falling from inside the dog’s ear leathers. Bella snuffled contentedly and nestled more deeply.

The air-con was making slow work of cooling the stuffy room, but a pedestal fan set up opposite the couch made a decent difference. With high ceilings and quaint picture rails, the room had a solitary sash window that looked out to the street and a tiny yet dominating postwar fireplace with a too-large mantelpiece. Everything smelt a bit musty. Too bad she had no time for renovations. For now, there was more than enough to do in setting up the shop. Even if the house was absurdly rustic compared to the Melbourne apartment she’d shared with Greer, it was liveable. And tranquil, which she needed more than anything.

When widowed Uncle Garry died last summer, her father had inherited his estate. He rented the house out over winter and into spring until a few months ago. For want of a sale, Felix had moth-balled his brother’s old pharmacy in the arcade off Toodyay’s main street. The business had been heading for extinction anyway, a new pharmacy farther up the street having consumed the last of his meagre trade.

For Nadeen, it was perfect timing. When her nine-year relationship with Greer had ended four months ago, she decided to pack up everything, including her eclectic gift shop, The Prophet, to move it three thousand kilometres to Toodyay, her childhood home in Western Australia. About as far away from Melbourne—and Greer—as she could get and still be in the same country.

Tonight’s phone message was yet another among so many received in the last three weeks that she’d lost count. She had no intention of returning Greer’s calls. Not ever. More annoying was how Greer had got hold of her number. Nadeen hadn’t given it to her and she most definitely didn’t want to be found.

Being dumped for some brainless, Jockey-wearing bimbo likely half her forty-two years, coupled with Greer’s obsession with said bimbo and utter disregard for her maimed heart, was more than enough reason to pack up and get the hell out of town.

Enough already. Whatever Greer was after, she could go take a flying leap through a rolling donut. Preferably all by herself.

Nadeen’s throat ached—she blinked rapidly until moist eyes dried out. Firmly convinced it was best to make a clean break from the remains of their relationship, she was handling the grief well enough. And the last thing she needed was her ex popping up, just as she was getting over it and establishing herself anew.

Her gift shop had been doing very well in suburban Melbourne. At the breakup, her father had tried to convince her to move back to Sydney and find a vacant shop in an outer suburb. A retired Egyptologist and part-time teaching professor at Sydney University, Felix Quin was a minor international celebrity in his field, and not short of funds. In fact, it was less than six months ago that he’d bought a luxury high-rise apartment in Bondi Beach where he lived with Jodie, his latest young thing.

Truth be known, she didn’t want to live that close to him because his attitude to her “choice of lifestyle” was fundamentally hostile. When she first phoned and told him she and Greer were splitting up, he made no attempt to hide his delight. Yet he was downright dubious about her setting up shop across country in sleepy Toodyay. His suggestion of a sprawling metropolitan city like Sydney was perfectly sensible.

Still, her childhood home had drawn her with a persistent urgency, even though the businesswoman in her knew that moving here was a sizeable risk. She was resolved, and had told him as much, without knowing how or when she might be able to make it happen. Ten days after that phone call, he rang and offered her Uncle Garry’s house and shop, unconditionally. With little demand for rentals in Toodyay, it made sense to have her occupy the house and thereby look after it. Still, such unusual largesse gave her pause. But she took him up on it, no questions asked.

Something about his latest message left her uneasy. Notorious for a hidden agenda, what was his “great news”? What was her unpredictable, rather contrary Dad up to this time?

Such shenanigans were giving her a headache. As it was, she regularly questioned her own decision to uproot herself and take off across the country as if Toodyay were Neverland. Her father had grown up in Toodyay. When his wife fell pregnant while they were working in Egypt, he brought them home. But career advancement called and they moved to Sydney when she was only eight years old. She had few memories of the town, but they were precious and sweet. Now, was she being wildly idealistic, if not completely delusional?

What would tiny Toodyay make of her shop’s richly diverse offerings? Probably not much locally, but the surrounding area was growing strongly as a tourist destination, particularly for weekend jaunts by more sophisticated, moneyed-up Perth residents looking for that special “something different.” That, The Prophet would definitely offer. She was counting on it.

Nadeen arose, nudged the reluctant pooch off the couch and lead the way down the hall to the back door where she flicked on the outside light. She let Bella out to toilet on the scrappy lawn under the clothesline. Uncle Garry’s greenhouses loomed next to the garage. They were surrounded by innumerable pots of stunted gerberas that had toughed out the summer so far, despite inevitable casualties. A substantial garden shed backed onto cultivated beds full of similar plants in various states of health. Since she moved in, she’d been hand-watering heavily to bring back from the brink those that she could.

Uncle Garry and Aunt Peggy had been keen gerbera fanciers, both quite besotted with the colourful, sturdy South African daisy that thrived in Perth’s severe dry summers and cool wet winters. They had been stalwart Gerbera Society members, a hobby that saved Garry’s sanity after Peggy died. As a small child, Nadeen had helped them pot up pups—young gerbera plants—which had left her with an enduring fondness for their sturdy foliage and cheerful durable blooms. When she had more time, she would see what she could salvage. A phone call to the Gerbera Society for advice was on her “to do” list. With any luck, someone would be prepared to make the hour-long drive from Perth city to have a look for her.

It was another hot night that wouldn’t make for easy sleeping. She leant against the doorjamb and studied the stars, brilliant without a large city’s light pollution. Bella snuffled about under the clothesline, then looked up sharply. A shadowy boobook owl perched on a wire, eyeing off the dog below. Without a whisper of sound, the owl launched off and disappeared into the trees, its hunting for mice or similar tasty morsels curtailed for now. The boobook’s mournful call that imitated its name was as much a sound of her childhood as a magpie’s warbling. This place was home.

What about that young girl…Mel something? Telling her to drop in on Sunday had been an impulse she couldn’t resist because she needed allies in Toodyay. And a well-trained willing sidekick could make life so much easier. She hadn’t dared to hope for such help, but when opportunity knocked, courage took the chance. Assuming Mel was suitable, of course. She seemed promising, but that could be mere wishful thinking. Only one way to find out.