The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Blue pincushion

Meaning: I mourn your absence

Brunonia australis | All states and territories

A perennial found in woodlands, open forest and sand plains. Medium to deep blue flowers usually in spring, in hemispherical clusters on a tall stem. Can be difficult to establish. May die after a few years.

Alice, can you hear me? I’m here.

The voice. Softly.

She drifted in and out of consciousness, only catching moments long enough to sense her surroundings. The sharp smells of antiseptic and disinfectant. The glare of a white-walled room. The sweetness of roses. Scratchy, starched bed sheets. A rhythmic beeping at her side. Squeaky shoes on a squeaky floor. The voice. Softly.

You’re not alone, Alice, I’m here. I’m going to tell you a story.

Her tongue thickened with longing. She strained to answer the voice, to stay close to the smell of roses, but too quickly she sank back into the murky depths, her limbs heavy with the silt of memory.

Thin amber light shot through the nothingness that pressed in on Alice from all directions. She edged towards it. There was a hardening sensation under her feet, as if she’d reached the sandy bottom of the shallows after swimming in the deep. She realised she was on her beach, but something was very wrong. The dunes of silver-green seagrass were burnt and smoking. The sand was soot-black, and the ocean was gone, a tide lower than Alice had ever seen. She kicked her feet through the blackened shells of dead soldier crabs and cracked pipi shells, their pastel colours charred. Cinders drifted like flaky stars, and clumps of salty ash gathered in her eyelashes. Far off in the distance the low tide shimmered, orange embers under a dark sky. The air was hot and smelled foul.

I’m right here, Alice.

Tears burned her cheeks.

Alice, I’m going to tell you a story.

She searched the blackened shoreline. There was an acrid taste in her mouth. She sensed the heat on her skin before she turned towards the sea.

The embers shimmering on the distant horizon exploded into flames. Fiery waves rose, crashed and rose again, a stampede of glowering beasts. It hurt to breathe. An ocean of fire thundered towards her on the black sand.

Heat from the towering waves scorched her face. All she could smell was roses.

Wave after wave curled and crested, gathering strength as it raced towards her. She tried to crawl away, scrambling to get further up the beach, but she couldn’t get traction in the soft sand. Trapped, she turned, helpless as the ocean of fire wheeled over her, a swirling wall of flames. Pressure surged from her gut, but when she took a deep breath, all that tumbled from her lungs was a silent scream of tiny white flowers.

She floated on coral and flaxen flames. What she thought was a sea of fire was not seawater at all; it was an ocean of fiery light. Around her it rippled, constantly changing, a flare of aqua, a splash of violet, a burst of tangerine. She combed her fingers through the colours as her body was immersed.

The room was dark. The scratchy sheets were too tight. The air smelled so sharp it made her nose and eyes fizz. She tried to roll over but was not strong enough; the bands of light transformed into thick and flaming snakes, coiling around her body, burning as they tightened. She coughed violently, crying for breath as her lungs constricted. Fear snuffed out her voice.

Alice, can you hear me? I’m here.

She was outside of herself, watching the fire snakes consume her body.

Just stay with my voice.

Sally finished reading the last page aloud and closed the book in her lap. She sat back in the chair by Alice’s hospital bed, almost unable to bear the sight of her pale skin and bruises. How different she looked, two years older than the young girl Sally first met on that melting-hot summer day when Alice showed up at the library in her nightie, dirty, neglected and vivid as a dream. Now she lay lifeless, with her long hair spilling across her pillow and down the sides of the bed, as if she were a character from the book in Sally’s hands.

‘Can you hear me, Alice?’ she asked again. ‘Alice, I’m here. Just stay with my voice.’ She searched Alice’s face, studying her arms resting on top of the hospital sheets, looking for the smallest movement. There was none, other than the rise and fall of her chest, assisted by the machines beeping and whirring alongside her. Alice’s jaw was slack and there was bruising down the right-hand side of her face. The oxygen tube pushed her mouth into a collapsed O.

Sally wiped a tear away as a thought circled through her mind like a snake eating its tail: she should never have let Alice out of her sight that day she walked into the library alone. Or, the quieter, deeper, harder truth: she should have tucked Alice into her car and driven her home to her house where she could have cooked her a hot meal, run her a bath and kept her safe from Clem Hart.

Twitching with regret, Sally sprang from her chair, pacing at the end of Alice’s bed.

She shouldn’t have listened to John when he said Sally had no legal rights. She shouldn’t have accepted the story John relayed to her: after Sally called the station from the library, a patrol car went to the Hart property. Agnes welcomed the two officers in. Offered tea and scones. Apparently, Clem came home while they were there. Alice is just a mischievous kid, he’d said. No harm done. For John’s sake Sally did her best to let it rest. But meeting Alice had an effect on her she couldn’t control; she became all Sally could think about. A month or so after Alice visited the library, Clem walked brazenly through the door with the selkie book and Alice’s taped-together library card, as if he had every right. Sally hid behind a stack of books and let someone else serve him. After he left, she shook so hard she went home sick. Ran a bath. Drank half a bottle of scotch. Still, she shook. He’d always had that effect on her. He was her darkest secret.

Now, years later, Clem Hart was all anyone in town was talking about: the charming farmer who had kept his beautiful wife and curious daughter locked away, like a dark fairytale. So tragic, some exclaimed. So young, others said, averting their eyes.

The heartrate monitor beeped steadily. Sally stopped pacing. The veins in Alice’s closed eyelids ran like tiny violet rivers under her translucent skin. Sally wrapped her arms around herself. She’d met dozens of children in the library since Gillian died; none had unsettled her like Alice Hart. It wasn’t a coincidence, of course. It was because she was Clem Hart’s daughter. From the night John came through the front door and told Sally about the fire, she’d gone to the hospital every day, reading to Alice while the police and welfare authorities huddled together outside, deciding her fate. Sally made sure her voice was soft, clear and strong, in the hope that wherever Alice was inside herself, she would hear her.

The door slid open.

‘Hi, Sal. How’s our little fighter doing today?’

‘Good, Brookie. Really good.’

Brooke fussed over Alice’s charts and checked her drip, smiling as she took Alice’s temperature. ‘You’ve made her room smell like roses. I think you’re the only person I know who’s worn the same perfume all their life.’

Sally smiled, comforted by the warmth and familiarity of their old friendship. But the sounds of the machines filled her head. Unable to bear listening to them, Sally started talking.

‘She’s doing really well today. Really well. She loves fairytales.’ Sally held up the book she’d been reading. Her hand shook. ‘But who doesn’t?’

‘Right. Who doesn’t love happy endings?’ Brooke smiled.

Sally’s smile faltered. She knew as well as than anyone that happy endings weren’t always what they seemed.

Brooke watched her closely. ‘I know, Sal,’ she said gently. ‘I know how hard this is for you.’

Sally wiped her nose on her sleeve.

‘I haven’t learned a thing, not in all these years,’ she said. ‘I could have saved her. I could have done something. Now look at her.’ Sally’s chin wobbled uncontrollably. ‘I’m a stupid woman.’

‘Nope.’ Brooke shook her head. ‘Not on my watch. I won’t have that kind of talk, you hear me? If I were Agnes Hart, God rest her poor soul, I’d be so bloody grateful to you, coming here every day out of the love in your big heart to keep Alice company, reading her stories.’

At the mention of Agnes, Sally’s guts churned. She’d seen her a few times over the years. Twice driving through town, sitting in the passenger seat of Clem’s truck. Once in line at the post office. She was a wisp of a woman. Fading somehow, as if she might vanish right in front of your eyes. Standing behind her in line, Sally could hardly bear the fragility of her shoulders. Her reasons for being in the hospital aside, sitting with Alice was the least Sally could do for Agnes.

‘She can’t even hear me.’ Sally sagged in her seat. There was an ache behind her eyes.

‘Rubbish,’ Brooke snorted. ‘I know you don’t believe that, but sure, I’ll let you wallow.’ She nudged Sally affectionately. ‘Every day you’ve been here has helped her recovery. You know that. Her temperature’s coming down and her lungs are clearing. We’re keeping an eye on her brain swelling, but things are good. If she continues like this, she’ll be out of here by the end of the week.’

Sally frowned. Brooke, misunderstanding the tears in her eyes, leant forward to wrap Sally in a hug.

‘I know, isn’t it such good news about her grandmother?’ Brooke gave her a squeeze and straightened up.

‘Grandmother?’ Sally asked, her legs deadening.

‘You know, social services finding Alice’s grandmother.’

‘What?’ she barely managed to whisper.

‘Out on a farm out in Woop-Woop, somewhere inland, I think. Grows flowers. Farming’s in the blood, I guess.’

Sally couldn’t stop nodding.

‘I thought John was the one who called her to organise it all – he didn’t tell you any of this?’

Sally sprang out of her seat, hastily grabbing her things. Brooke took a cautious step towards her, offering a steadying hand. Sally backed away, towards the door, shaking her head.

‘Oh, Sal.’ Realisation filled Brooke’s face.

Sally slid the door open and rushed down the corridor and out of the hospital that had now taken the two children she loved most from her life.

Alice hovered, cradled by a calm nothingness. No ocean, no fire, no snakes, no voice. Her skin tingled in anticipation. Nearby, a deep gush of air and the sound of wings. Flap, flap, swoop; up, up, away.

A single fiery feather beckoned, leaving a trail of shimmering light behind it.

Unafraid, she followed.