We chose Hills Point for the sheer beauty of it, a mountain town ringed by other mountains. It was hard to get to and, because of that, solitary and still, a cool, private place of reflection and contemplation. It consisted of a main street, and a few other, smaller streets running off it, and that was it. Population 30, a few abandoned shops and falling-down shacks. And a pub, of course, a huge, white palace of a pub. The only shop still running was the general store, owned by Ruby Langdon, 15 years resident and as wide as she was tall.
Our own place had once been the local boarding house, a weatherboard maze of rotting carpets, cast iron beds and washstands. It was the first thing of any significance we had ever owned. At night, we would climb up to the top floor and gaze out at the wildness, listen to the scuffling and snuffling of the animals, drink our wine, and imagine how it used to be. A mining town, a working town, a coarse, noisy, stinking town full of energy and self-importance, the very life of it ripping great holes in the quiet of the bush. And now all but dead, life seeping away. Hills Point, and other such towns, had grown so still and silent after such clashings and clangings that the very air had begun pooling, settling in great, suppurating clumps, past and present overlapping unhealthily, creating time wells. Hills Point was full of them.
The nearest well, fenced off for safety, was down the end of Welcome Lane, a short street of ancient shops that had been boarded up decades ago; it was a smallish well on the right side of the road, right in the middle of the footpath, the air around it puckered and torn, as if it were grieving the loss of all those smart, busy ladies dressed in their fineries, marching up and down with their packages. The deepest well lay down near the creek, hidden amongst some giant ferns. Tamsin and I decided that this must have been where sweethearts went to find privacy and, when the town died, this powerful space had yearned so much for blood and warmth and movement that a time well was born. Sometimes, when I walked down that way (which I did often, for I liked solitude and quiet), I would glimpse things in this well—old things, ancient creatures, staring out at me—and I would wonder how far back this well went, for we had no history, no conception, of animals with six legs or four heads or a hundred writhing tentacles.
How could you not explore the time wells? our friends asked us. Touch them, push at their skin, pass through? And we would have, but for the deep sense of unease that came upon us whenever we ventured near them, a sensation akin to that of standing at the edge of a bottomless abyss, of falling into the terrifying unknown. We could go so close and then no further. We were glad, on the whole, to give these wells a wide berth, even averting our eyes whenever we neared one. I found the shallow ones hardest to bear, the ones that held your own grey day from a few months ago, where all you could think was: What’s the point? Or the ones that showed you bright, blithe ignorance before bad news. There were a lot of those. But all the wells were bad. We are creatures who look forward. To look back goes against all our instincts.
I was up on a ladder one evening, painting the lounge room wall a pale green, when I felt it. I nearly fell with the strength of it and I had to hold on tight for a minute or so.
Tamsin came running in. “Can you sense it, Jamie?” she called out. “Something’s shifted.”
We headed towards the front door and peered into the darkness, as if we’d see a change, but everything was still and quiet, as always. And yet, we were sure we had not imagined it. Something had happened; something was altered. But we managed to settle down. We had our dinner and forgot about it for a bit.
It was when I was on my morning trek to Ruby’s, to grab some milk and get a sense of the day, that I first noticed the Welcome Lane well had healed. The shimmer and shift of it that I normally glimpsed out of the corner of my eye was gone. Cautiously, I moved closer to the site. Only concrete path and grass tufts and a forlorn wire fence. It made me uneasy. Were we living in some kind of boiling time soup, where wells bubbled and popped continuously? I had hoped for a bit more stability.
Ruby wasn’t about when I arrived at the shop, but this wasn’t unusual. She could be out the back having a breather, or taking a quick walk. She knew she could trust us to keep her up to date with what we took. I collected my supplies and was about to write out an IOU at the counter when I saw Ruby’s stockinged legs on the linoleum. It was such an incongruous sight that, at first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I moved around to the other side of the counter and there was the rest of Ruby, sprawled across the floor, a rich, red liquid pooled under her head. I bent down, took her wrist. No pulse. She looked like she had been there for some hours. The doorbell behind me rang. It was Malcolm, another long-term resident, ex cattle man.
“It’s Ruby,” I croaked. “She’s had a fall.”
Malcolm joined me, squatting down beside Ruby. “That’s no fall,” he stated. “That’s a bashing. See how the head’s all caved in? She’s been murdered.”
I called the police. Malcolm said he’d stay with Ruby till they arrived, which could be hours, as they were based a couple of hundred kilometres away. Then I hurried back to the house, feeling distinctly uneasy, what with the time well and now Ruby. Who on earth had done it?
I headed for the kitchen, following the bitter aroma of just boiled coffee. We loved our kitchen. It was huge, industrial-sized, built to accommodate vast vats of scone mix, mountains of mutton. We had nearly blown ourselves up with the stove when we first moved in, but we’d got the hang of it now. I relished the smoky flavour of our morning toast, the thick, oily coffee that stayed with me all day. I found Tamsin standing at the table, vigorously stirring a bowl of pikelet mix. She gave me one of her looks.
“What?” I said.
She shook her head, flicking the wooden spoon up so mix went all over the table.
“Milla reckons her shed’s been broken into. Her gun and ammunition’s been stolen.”
“Jesus,” I said, pulling up a chair and falling into it. I told her about Ruby.
“But it wasn’t a shooting. Malcolm said her head was bashed in.”
“Gotta be connected, though,” Tamsin said.
But who?
We knew there were some odd ones living around the place, people searching for absolute solitude, people who could not live within society for any number of reasons. Tamsin and I had always prided ourselves on our tolerance. Milla herself was a Satanist. Another resident, Jeff, had worked most his life in the abattoirs and carried his own, personal aura of tension around with him at all times. A little difference, after all, was no big deal. But how far do you go, how much do you tolerate, before it becomes dangerous?
Like any small community faced with a crisis, we gravitated to the pub. By about mid-afternoon, a dozen of us had arrived.
It felt calming at first, comforting to be with others, drinking and yarning in bar, a reminder that most of the world was ordinary and predictable and safe, and that talking about it usually helped. Although, after a while, it didn’t seem like such a good idea at all. Fear and alcohol are a terrible combination.
“We need to search every house,” Jeff stated firmly, his voice louder and louder. “That’s all there is to it. That way, we’ll know for sure who’s done it.”
“Now, let’s not get carried away, said Malcolm. “Could be someone who passed through.”
“Can’t be,” Jeff argued. “We haven’t heard a car in days.”
That was true enough, I had to admit.
“So, it’s gotta be one of us. We’ve got to search the houses.”