The Serpent's Skin

with his eyes before he took off out the door. Mother Gabriel slammed it closed after he’d gone. She scratched her neck, keeping her eyes right on me.
‘Clean up the broken mess you’ve made of our Sacred Mother,’ she said to me.
I gathered some of the biggest bits, got to my knees and on to my feet, the back of my neck prickling up under her spidery stare.
Once I clattered the pieces into the bin, Mother Gabriel finally peeled her eyes from me, giving me her back.
Then came the sound of the door locking.

THE THING SHE LEFT BEHIND
Iwas first in the bus line after school when Philly came pounding across the asphalt, making a beeline for me, her face all scrunched up concerned. I shook my head and she stopped, half tripping over with the sudden of it. I turned exactly away to stare at the rocks in the fence. Still she tucked in behind me and the thing was, Mary McCarthy and Joanne Tyler kicked their schoolbags and shuffled back to let her, sending big blazes of sorry my way. I knew Philly would be picking up those blazes and giving a tight half smile back.
Not me. I had my arms folded and my socks pulled right up to my knees. I didn’t even look up when I saw Tommy’s scuffed shoes hesitating before me. He and I always stood together, but after a few seconds he peeled away down the back of the line.
When we were all loaded up, Mr O’Brien was about to yank the bus door shut, but Tim just made it, pounding up the steps, with only a whisker to spare. In the window I saw him ruffle Philly’s hair beside me as he passed us. Saw her reach up. Saw her hand touch his. Their eyes burning into my back. I squeezed mine shut to stop all that seeing. Tim threw his bag on to the rack above the seat behind Philly’s and mine and grunted at Marty McMahon to git out. Marty did.
Only Tessa was where she normally was, up the front of the bus. Bet her lips were pursed tight up, though.
After our stop, the bus roared away with a gear grind and a spurt of black exhaust cloud and we all tore off up the track to see if Mum had come home yet. Philly got left behind pretty quick and set up a siren wail. Tessa clicked her tongue and fell back to wait for her to catch up. Tim let me take the lead easy, pretending he was slowing down for the others. He didn’t like to be the first one knowing a thing if the knowing wasn’t going to be much good to him.
‘Mum. Mum,’ I called as I slammed the door behind me, the whole house shuddering.
No answer. Not that I was expecting one because I already felt the house was full of empty.
I raced into my bedroom, tugging my uniform over my head on the way. I stuck my legs into a pair of trousers and pulled a jumper over my head. My thumb got caught in the hole at the elbow and I yanked it free. I hung up my uniform as if Mum had been there.
I was so quick that when I got back outside, the others still hadn’t turned up. I took off down the back to find Dad. Get to him before the others did so I could ask about Mum and answer his standard question about school without them putting in their two cents’ worth about me and Mother Gabriel. He wasn’t with the pigs, wasn’t in the cowshed, but the ute was parked in the drive, so he was here somewhere all right.
And he better tell me if Mum called, too.
The thing was, I was home in bed sick yesterday, so she would have told me where she was going if she was going somewhere. But maybe I was asleep and she didn’t want to wake me.
I’m not much of a sleeper, though, not in the day anyway. And she would have left me a note. Unless she was just going down the paddock, or taking Dad his lunch, or wild to the west wind with me.
All I remember is reading and reading about that Alice. But maybe I did fall asleep because I didn’t even hear Mum drive off with Mrs Nolan who’d been around helping Mum stake up the tomatoes. And that’s what she must have done because how else did Mum get to the station?
I climbed to the top rung of the cowshed fence to get away from all this scratching in my brain. Squinted and stared.
‘Dad.’
I put my ear to the wind. Nothing came riding back on it.
‘Daaaaaaaaaaaddd.’
Just the mourn of the crow. Nothin sadder. Up there in the gum tree beyond the fence, all by itself, black against the grey of the sky.
Where was Dad? Was he gone too now?
A hand in my gut was starting to fist up. I pressed my forearm into it, but it did no good. I ran to the other side of the fence and jumped up there to get a good look in the other direction. Pins and needles started buzzing in my wrists. Soon they were numbing me up, moving like a wall right through me. I stayed there looking and looking.
Then I saw it.
Something dark down by the lip of the dam where it shouldn’t have been. I leaned all the way forwards. A gumboot—adult big and flopped over.
The fist turned into a knife and my guts knew it.
What was it doing all on its own?
‘Get down from there.’ Tessa came into the shed, all changed and ready to set up for the milking later, as if Mum being gone was nothing out of the everyday of things.
My hands gripped the rail and no words got out of me.
‘Would have thought you’d be on your