One of Us Buried by Johanna Craven (year 2 reading books TXT) 📕

“You must have been here for days,” I say, thinking of all the blurred sunrises and sunsets I had been locked in my prison cell. My eyes drift to the tools scattered beside the firepit. And I think back to the day we had sat beside the Parramatta River and stared up at the towering redgums.

I learned a little construction when I was at school, he had said. A way of leaving your mark on a place.

“You’re the one who made the repairs to the house,” I say. “A way of leaving your mark.”

He doesn’t speak at once, just turns to look at the cottage, silhouetted in the twilight. “Well,” he says finally, “perhaps in this case it is more about undoing the mark I have left on the place.”

“The cottage is empty. Why have you continued? Fixing the house will not change what happened inside it.”

“No,” he says. “It won’t. But mending this cottage was to be an act of decency. Perhaps in some small way it still can.”

I hear the fragility in his voice; the guilt hiding beneath the surface that is pushing its way out.

“Maggie’s trial?” I say huskily. “Is that why you let Owen walk free? Because of all that happened at this cottage?”

Blackwell’s eyes are on the cracked windows of the house. “How could I send another member of this family to his death?”

I let out my breath in a sharp exhalation. I need to walk away. I can’t stand here speaking to the man who has lied to me from the beginning. The man who let Maggie’s killer walk free.

I stride out past the tent, past the cottage, past the remains of the campfire, yanking on my skirts as they entangle themselves on branches. I have no thought of which direction I’m walking, or what I will find. A part of me wants to walk all the way back to Sydney Town, but if I set out in the dark, the forest will swallow me. I turn in a circle. I cannot have walked more than a mile from Squires’ inn. But in which direction?

I hear footsteps behind me, the undergrowth crackling. Blackwell calls my name. I hear confusion in his voice. Why am I running away?

He reaches for my arm, but I yank away.

“You lied,” I say. “About your wife.”

Something passes across his eyes. What is he to attempt? An apology? An explanation? How can any of that be sufficient?

“Yes,” he says finally. “I did.”

A part of me is glad for his bluntness – glad he has attempted neither apology nor explanation. I don’t need him to explain. I know what I am. I know why he did what he did. I had arrived on his doorstep in blue striped skirts.

Wind rustles the bush, making me shiver. The light is draining quickly. The shadows are thickening and the birds shrieking in the trees.

“You can’t stay out here,” Blackwell says finally. “It’s getting dark.” He turns back to look at the tent. “I have shelter.”

I let out a humourless laugh, because at those words I am back on the streets of Parramatta, standing in the rain outside Reverend Marsden’s church. Where would I be right now if I had chosen not to follow Blackwell back to his hut? A pointless question, of course. Because we both know well there can be no changing the past.

And just like I did that stormy night, I walk with him back to his shelter, because I have no place else to go.

I take the food from my pockets and sit it on the edge of the blanket. Despite all the walking, I’m not hungry. All I want is to sleep. To forget this most confronting, draining of days; a day I was never supposed to even see.

I curl up on the edge of the blanket Blackwell has laid across the ground. The wool smells stale and damp. And I watch the last of the light give way to the dark. My thoughts are churning. I think of Lottie alone in her cell, awaiting death. Waiting for me to take Owen’s life; to bring about the justice I have been so desperately craving since I found Maggie’s body on the side of the road. I think of Blackwell’s lies and the ghosts in the cottage that have kept him unable to leave this place.

I lie there in the dark, listening to him breathe. I know he is awake. I imagine he is staring into the darkness, eyes open, thoughts whirring as quickly as my own.

I feel his hand slide over my shoulder. I can’t bring myself to look at him, even through the thick dark. Moonlight shafts through the trees, painting shadows on the roof of the tent.

“A God-fearing soldier like you is not supposed to love a woman who sits at the spinning wheels in the factory,” I say. “That’s why you lied, isn’t it.” It is not a question.

He lets out a deep breath. “I was led to believe certain things about this place. About the Irish. And about the convicts. Especially the women. And I never questioned any of it.

“I was taught to think of the Irish as animals. I didn’t question that before I came out here to the Owens’ cottage. And I pulled the trigger on innocent men.” His fingers tighten around the top of my arm. “And when I took in a factory lass from the street, I was not expecting you. I was expecting what I had been told I would see.”

“Immorality,” I say. “A loose woman.”

I know that, had I not been the one in convict slops, I would have seen this place in the same way. I would have watched the women from the factory crawl into bed with their settlers and soldiers, and I would have