Free A Darker Music by Maris Morton Page A

said to show you Beelyup Pool.’
    Having cleared it with Clio, Mary went with Gayleen to the Grayson house, then around the side to where Gloria’s school bus was parked in a lean-to shed. Heat was radiating from the engine, and there was the ticking of cooling metal. A row of bikes was lined up along the wall.
    Gayleen wheeled out her own and straddled it, leaning her elbows on the handlebars and drawing patterns in the damp ground with the toe of her sneaker. ‘Gary’s is the purple BMX,’ she said. ‘Dad pumped up the tyres. The seat should be about right for you, he reckons.’
    Mary found the bike and pushed it out into the cold sunshine. She’d never ridden a BMX before, but after wobbling for a few nervous minutes she had the hang of it.
    Gayleen watched her cautious circling, nodded approval, and took off, pedalling energetically. ‘Just follow me!’ she called over her shoulder.
    Away from the buildings it was very quiet, with only the murmur of sheep, the song of a bird and the friction of their tyres over the sandy ground to fill the vast, crystalline silence. Mary had never ridden over rough ground like this. She’d always been in a town or a city, on bitumen or concrete, with traffic the main hazard. Here she was more likely to bump into a burnt-out tree stump, or bog in a patch of soft sand. The exercise was making her toasty warm, the cold air tingling on cheeks and nose, her breath vanishing behind her.
    With a start of surprise, Mary realised that they were passing the airstrip, the hangar doors gaping and, somewhere inside, the vehicle that she might find herself driving some time when Paul and Martin were away. But Gayleen was getting too far ahead, and Mary had to race to catch up, panting with the effort. They were heading obliquely for a belt of trees to their right. They followed a sheep track that meandered through the bush until it became too narrowly hemmed in by the trees. There they left the bicycles propped and walked on.
    Gayleen stopped at the edge of a clearing. ‘This was the first house,’ she whispered, as if some vagrant spirit might be listening. ‘Before the Hazlitts came.’
    Almost hidden among the trees was part of a stone-built chimney. Gayleen paced around the clearing with the confidence of familiarity. ‘Me and Gary used to play archaeologists here. We watched them on TV, saw how they did it. I’ll show you.’ She led the way around the site, explaining, ‘This would’ve been the verandah, see? The walls were slabs of sheoak, with the bark still on and mud in the cracks to keep the wind out. Some of the iron from the roof ’s still here … pretty rusty, but. And over here’s a heap of broken glass where the window must’ve fallen out. You have to be a bit careful where you walk.’
    ‘Do you know who lived here?’
    ‘Their name was Brown,’ Gayleen said. ‘Like in Browns Creek. It was just Mr Brown and his wife, but she died and then it was just him. He had sheep and a couple of dogs. He died in there, but I’ve never heard any ghosts.’
    Gayleen headed off through the trees, beckoning Mary to follow. Her hair was decorated with flecks of bark and casuarina needles, her eyes bright. ‘This is the pool,’ she announced, and Mary found herself standing on the bank of a wide pond, almost a little lake, its still surface offering a perfect, inverted image of the trees on the other side. Near the water the trees changed to melaleucas, and Mary stroked the layered papery bark. On the water two wild ducks were riding on their own reflections, and over on the far side, a great egret was standing motionless, luminous against the dark foliage.
    ‘It’s lovely,’ Mary said softly.
    ‘That’s why they put the house there, so they had water. It’s part of Browns Creek; we come here to catch marron in summer. The first farm was called Beelyup, after this pool. That’s what the Noongahs called it. The Hazlitts changed the name.’
    ‘You know a lot about