Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

of town he drove back to the crossroads and followed the dead boomer’s nod to go right.

‘Have you got an address?’ asked Nee. She wasn’t looking out the window anymore but staring at him as if he could materialize their house from thin air.

‘Pick one,’ he replied.

‘Pick one?’

Her dark eyes narrowed, the delicate Thai features contracting into something vicious. It gave the impression that she was in pain. But Lorcan knew that she was considering all the angles before committing to a response. She avoided long, drawn-out domestics, if possible. One wound, provided it was deep enough, was sufficient.

‘Any one?’

Lorcan was glad of the interruption from the back seat, the childish fervour dispelling the growing mood in the vehicle.

‘Any,’ he replied, turning towards his son who was leaning into the front seat between them like a dog. And just as eager.

‘What do you mean, any?’ asked Naiyana. ‘Which one did you buy?’

‘I didn’t buy any of them.’

‘What—?’

Lorcan jumped on the grenade before it exploded.

‘It’s called adverse possession.’

‘What is?’

‘It’s an old common law right we inherited from the Poms.’ He could see on her face that she was lost so he continued. ‘If a house is abandoned, we can take it, make some improvements and if… when… we meet a series of requirements we gain title to it.’

He smiled at her. It wasn’t returned, her lips drawn tight. Dylan was watching both of them.

She waved her slender hand across the expanse of the front windscreen. ‘There isn’t much to hold onto.’

‘There will be.’

A curl of her lip told him she doubted it very much.

‘So we move in and just take it over? Like an army?’ asked Dylan.

‘Exactly,’ said Lorcan. He kept quiet that they would need to hold onto the property for twelve years before they could claim title. That was a long way down the line. The main thing, according to the law, was to hold exclusive, uninterrupted and adverse possession, meaning that the owner had not given them permission to move in. Which they hadn’t. And there was no one around to dispute with.

In the end the kangaroo gave them a bum steer. Turning around and passing the crossroads once again, he spotted it. The best of a bad bunch, the red brick slap-dashed with white lime or paint that had faded over time but still stood out from the rest. A bungalow with the roof caved in on one side. But there would be time to fix that. Out here it didn’t rain very much. Which, of course, presented a big problem in itself.

5

Naiyana

As he backed the ute close to a front door that was hanging off the bottom hinge and leaning precariously forward like a late-night drunk angling for support, she studied the place she was to call home. That she would be forced to call home. It was nothing like the expansive, five-bedroom, three-bathroom and one fucking great kitchen that she had left behind. One with an island in the middle that she literally couldn’t touch the centre of without standing on the step Dylan had for reaching the toilet when he was younger. The dilapidated state of the house felt intimidating, like it would crash around them at any point.

Dylan, however, was unbound by such worries and rushed off to check it out.

‘Don’t go inside,’ she called out as an arm slid around her shoulder. Whether it was her edginess at the new place or at the dead surroundings, she tensed her shoulders against his grip, almost fighting to get away. She took it as a sign, trusting her body.

‘Well?’ asked Lorcan.

‘Well, you’ve got a lot of work to do,’ she replied.

‘It’ll be worth it.’

‘I’ll reserve judgement. First, check inside. Once I get the all-clear I’ll come in.’

‘Just keep an open mind.’

‘It’s been open since we left Perth. Believe me, if we didn’t have to lie low I wouldn’t be here.’

There was a pause. She knew what Lorcan was thinking. This was punishment for what he had done and for what he had tried to do to rectify it. But she wasn’t entirely innocent herself. He had lost the house but she had made plenty of enemies too.

She watched as he left her side and half-lifted, half-pushed the front door open, some of the blue paint crumbling onto the front step. He stepped inside and took what he had called adverse possession of the house. More adversity they didn’t need.

Grasping Dylan’s hand to prevent him from following his father inside she waited for the assessment.

Dylan fought her grip, pulling strongly against her. She had never been one for exercise. The intensity of the charity and campaigning work kept her naturally slim, working until she realized that she hadn’t eaten. Her genes helped too, her father and mother little pockets of dynamism. People who had suffered more adversity than she could ever dream of; who had survived a long and torturous trip here only to be faced with a wrathful government and suspicious population. But even they wouldn’t speak to her now. Bloody-mindedness was obviously inherited too.

Her mind returned to the present. As did a spark of fear. It entered her body through the right side of her gut where her appendix had been removed when she was eleven, the scar pale and raised against her skin.

‘Lorc?’ she called out at the house.

There was no answer.

‘Shall I go in and get Daddy?’ offered Dylan but Naiyana retained her grip. The house had already taken one. She wasn’t going to lose another.

She licked her lips. They were already beginning to crack in the dry heat. Another thing she missed about Perth. The air around here was like an oven, as if just waiting to reach critical temp, ignite and burn everything to cinders. She couldn’t wait to see a beach again, feel the sea lap at her ankles, dive in.

‘Daddy!’ called out Dylan.

Again no answer.

She began to wonder if he had fallen down a hole in the floor, or if silently some wall