Produkt

KlappentextWhat lies behind the gates of the Sanctuary? 'Urgent. Come tomorrow. Can't wait any longer.' Charli Trenthan plans to leave her hometown of Stone Lake. But when she receives a cryptic message from a member of the Sanctuary, a conservative closed community nestled in the forest, she is determined to find answers. A gruesome discovery soon lands Charli in hot water with the police, but how is the Sanctuary connected? As she digs deeper, dark secrets are uncovered and the fight to prove her innocence turns into a fight for her life. A gripping thriller with a shocking conclusion that will leave you spellbound, Deep in the Forest raises questions about who we trust and why.

Erina has worked with words, ideas and stories all her life. She started out as a journalist, working in radio and television and was awarded the prestigious Walkley Award for her work as an ABC foreign correspondent. She has a Master's Degree in Professional Writing (University of Technology Sydney) and a PhD in Creative Writing (La Trobe University) on girl warriors and ball gowns. She's taught politics at the University of Melbourne and creative writing at LaTrobe University and Writers Victoria. Her family claims she can glamorise a handful of facts beyond recognition in the service of an entertaining story, sometimes at the expense of truth but always in favour of wonder.

Details

Weitere ISBN/GTIN9780648748854

ProduktartE-Book

EinbandartE-Book

FormatEPUB

Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen

FormatE101

Verlag

Pantera Press

Erscheinungsjahr2023

Erscheinungsdatum28.11.2023

Seiten304 Seiten

SpracheEnglisch

Dateigrösse2090 Kbytes

Artikel-Nr.13124063

Rubriken

Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

1
The Gathering Dark

Ice always melts.

That s what my mother said to me in the grip of a winter chill. It was her way of saying that, in the end, truth will out. But I don t know. I think it s just a fairytale, the kind mothers tell their kids to buy them the precious years they need to thicken up enough to face the real truth: that life is a twisty, dark affair.

I ve had the years. All twenty-seven, but still I m shiver-thin on the inside with nowhere near enough layers to confront life s unexpected curves. I gear down to avoid a pothole on this long winding drive, as familiar to me as my own skin. I always go gently at night under the canopy of spreading eucalyptus trees. Switching off the pound of music, I bathe in the sudden quiet. Just the even hum of the engine and me, easing through the shadowy forest. It s funny how the night softens you out.

I miss my mother the most when I drive through the estate s elaborate wrought iron gates. Every time. I give in to the need to knock my knuckle against the car door three times to help swallow down the jag of grief before it gets to be something. When I pull on the handbrake in front of my house, this grand sandstone passed down through generations, built on stolen land, it takes me a while to gather my energy against my reluctance to get out, but eventually it s the cold that makes me open the door. I pick up the bean casserole Amra gave me and do my usual jump to the ground. Amra can t understand why I bought a Ford Ranger with a cabin so stupidly high that I need to hoist myself up into it and jump out of it. Maybe it s because it s so big it carapaces around me like a protective shell. Up there, nobody can touch me.

Needing to be behind closed, familiar doors now, I stride past the fountain that hasn t seen water for a year and sprint up the wide marble stairs to the verandah, taking them two at a time to keep ahead of the icy alpine night air. The sound of the door closing behind me echoes through the cavernous space like loneliness. I hunch over against it and keep my head down as I bolt towards the kitchen at the back of the house. I never let myself even glance at the curving elegance of the staircase that soars to the second floor. It s the deal I made with myself the night my mother died a year back; I can get through this if I just stay away from all her places.

In the kitchen, I click on the heater and slide the casserole into the fridge, businesslike, turning to put on the kettle, until I snag on the hard stare of the woman looking back at me in the reflection from the window. I m skewered by the sharp, white planes of the face in the cold glass and the way it s swallowed into the dark of my hair and the black of my hoodie. I m a pale outline of being, all angles and no substance, as if I m an apparition in my own life. I widen my eyes to break the spell, chastising myself for my predilection for the gothic and stride back through the house to get to the only other room I still call home. The soft lamps of my studio are on a timer so they re already glowing. My body exhales as if the whole time I ve been away I ve been holding my breath. I leave the door slightly ajar for Bojo to snuffle in when she s ready, but it s closed enough to shut out the rest of the house and all its absences. I hunch my fists into my armpits to stop myself knuckle tapping on the corner of my worktable. It s cold so I cross to the fireplace, squat down and strike a match to the pile of brambles criss-crossed under two logs ready to flame up.

At nine in the evening, the last thing I want is to start work, but I promised Amra I d concentrate on the binding of the Sanctuary s book tonight because all I do is moan about how far behind schedule I am and how I wish I wasn t doing it at all. I place another few strategic logs on the fire and blow on my cold hands before holding them out to the first leap of flame. I ve got exactly fourteen days before a government senator is coming to launch this book at the Sanctuary s one hundredth anniversary.

I suck in air, grimacing over how long I let myself procrastinate over this project. There s just too much at stake. With this one I m not binding a book for far-off multi-nationals or wealthy philanthropic families I ll never meet. This time it s for the Sanctuary, the closed community who run a drug rehabilitation program on the other side of the lake.

The eyes of this town are watching.

Once the people of Stone Lake found out that the Sanctuary commissioned me to bind this book they tried to stop it. Some feel I shouldn t be rewarded after what they say I ve done. Others worry that I will put something damning in the book which will bring the media down on the Sanctuary again.

After a former Sanctuary member disappeared a couple of years back, the media went into a frenzy and tourists stayed away from the town s stores until well after the police cleared the Sanctuary of any involvement. Nobody in Stone Lake can afford another economic hit like that. Especially not after the brutal Covid lockdowns kept Melbournians away and the bushfire that roared through the community last summer. It s been a hard few years.

I rub my face like I might take the skin right off, because there s much more to my unwillingness to complete this project than just the judgement of those watching eyes. The real truth is buried further down, underneath the mud. My mother was one of the Sanctuary s financial donors and I m not yet strong enough to stumble across her name in some unseen corner somewhere in the box of memorabilia they ve given me. To be reminded of who she once was - flesh and bones and here.

The fire pops and I twist away to dodge the shower of sparks, jumping to my feet to stamp them out before they burn a hole in the carpet. I shake out my hands, trying to close down this useless whir about my mother in my brain. Tea. I need tea before I can start work.

In the kitchen I cut up ginger and thyme and steep them in boiling water in the teapot. Briefly I wonder if I should be worried about my missing-in-action shaggy, grey bundle of a dog. Since she just strayed into our yard a few years back, I m not always sure Bojo will return whenever she goes off chasing something in the forest out the back. I stir the steaming water in the teapot and replace the lid, making the decision to give Bojo some more time before I yell for her to come home.

I take the teapot and my favourite mug with the black and white puzzle pieces back to my studio. I slip onto the stool and smooth my hand along the worn, honey-blond boards.

My mother had this table made for me when I turned twenty. She commissioned it from the artisan woodcrafters up at the Sanctuary, who used recycled floorboards from a nineteenth-century church. That s what she did. One good thing, turned in to three. Something beautiful for me, support the Sanctuary, save the planet. The side of my mouth turns up into what could become a smile if I allowed it a little more oxygen.

I look out through the floor-to-ceiling French windows to the dark. Despite my resolution to avoid all further distractions, I m not quite still enough in my bones to open their box. I ve done absolutely everything I can do on this book without going through their physical materials.

Instead I pull the book I ve just finished binding towards me, sip the sharp heat of the tea and open the front cover. I turn every page, eyes assessing fonts, borders, spaces, images and how they all hold each other in this bound world. The quiet perfection of the book washes through me. When I reach the end page, I close it up. Reluctant to let it go, my index finger traces the embossed Celtic Cross on the front cover and then the fleur-de-lis silver clips at each corner of this history of the Gilchrist Royal Academy.

This.

It calms me.

This stillness. This warmth. This work.

The sing of it.

Good of you to show up, I say without looking up as Bojo finally noses the studio door open. She pads over and snuffles into my thigh, breathing heavily like she s spent her life propped on a bar stool, chain smoking. I bend so I can pull up the ruff at her neck to welcome her home, and then release it. Her eyes roll back as if she s in heaven. Got work to do, mate. I nudge her with my knee towards the fireplace and her nest of rugs. For a second, I wonder if I should close the drapes since I m going to be working late tonight, but I don t move. We re so deep in the bush here, there s nobody for miles. Just Amra s family up this road and the Sanctuary community a forty-minute run through the forest. I wrap the Academy s book in its linen and place it in its box for the courier tomorrow.

I m still not ready to focus on the Sanctuary s book but I don t have the luxury of ready anymore. I have two weeks before the book has to be finished. That s all. And then I m on that plane for Venice.

At last.

I close my eyes over the relief. It s not just the thought of working with the world-expert on Venetian sunk-panel binding. It s knowing that I m finally...

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Autor

Reddan, Erina

Erina has worked with words, ideas and stories all her life. She started out as a journalist, working in radio and television and was awarded the prestigious Walkley Award for her work as an ABC foreign correspondent. She has a Master's Degree in Professional Writing (University of Technology Sydney) and a PhD in Creative Writing (La Trobe University) on girl warriors and ball gowns. She's taught politics at the University of Melbourne and creative writing at LaTrobe University and Writers Victoria. Her family claims she can glamorise a handful of facts beyond recognition in the service of an entertaining story, sometimes at the expense of truth but always in favour of wonder.

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