An old shack sat in a small grassy block enclosed by tea-trees, ferns, and eucalypts. The gutters of its rusted roof overflowing with litter and its surrounds boarded by an old timber post and rail fence. James Black stood on the veranda. He felt the dampness in the wood beneath him and smelt the dampness of the trees and shrubbery that surrounded him. It was his choice. This was the life he wanted.

He looked to the sky and thought of the professor. They had taken him away now—his only companion.

James tilted his head. He thought he heard a slight crackle. A small lightning bolt. Strange.

He turned and went back inside. Something was coming. He just wasn’t sure what it was.

<°)))><

The transfer didn’t involve reflective cloaks or transformation optics. Things stood still. Lucas stared at Isabella and saw a hideous being moving towards her. Isabella turned and screamed. Then they tumbled on to a soft surface. Carpet.

Lucas stood up and went over to help Isabella to her feet. A small window with a roman blind partially pulled down revealed that night was now upon them and the dim light entering the room showed they were in a bedroom with no furniture and wallpaper from another era.

“That was a pretty strange experience, Lucas. It’s like nothing happened except the people who change the stage settings—stage hands I think they’re called—have come and gone and I didn’t see them. Where have those bikers gone? Maybe they were carried out by the stage hands.”

Seeing that Isabella was okay released some tension in his chest. He’d only known her for a short time, but the thought of her being lost in the realm troubled him and it wasn’t just because Starkey told him to take care of her—Lucas wanted to.

Lucas had tried not to look at Isabella too closely. It had been a long time since he was alone with a girl and she was just such a pretty vulnerable thing. He loved the cheeky sparkle in her brown eyes, which seemed to kindle a sparkle in Lucas. But his time in prison had adjusted his desires. He knew one day he would have a lasting relationship. He just needed to bide his time and work to make himself a better person, although this situation wasn’t helping.

The bedroom door was open. Lucas signalled for Isabella to stay still as he stepped out of the room into a narrow passageway. To the left was the front entrance door, to the right, at the end of the passage, was another door which must go into a living area. It was closed and a yellow and reddish light was escaping at the bottom of the door. There was some music playing, not loud but loud enough. Lucas knew the tune as an old Beatles song: ‘Hey, Jude’. Lucas had no familiarity with the house. He walked up to the front door. It was locked from the inside.

There was a squeak as a door opened behind him. The music got louder and more light spilled into the passageway. Lucas turned to see a figure standing in the doorway.

“Hello, you must be, Lucas.” The figure moved towards Lucas. “Is the girl with you?”

<°)))><

When Lucas had entered the passageway, Isabella walked over to the window and looked out. She wasn’t fearful. Where were they? A large spotlight highlighted a shed with firewood stacked beside it. Thick bushland was only a short distance away, and the spotlight encroached to show tree trunks black from a bush fire. The house was lucky to still be here. The surroundings were similar to Gramps’ place. She noted there was lots of new growth—nature fighting back after devastation, the way it was designed to. On one of their walks, Mum had said some seeds were dependent on fire to germinate.

There was a favourite walk Mum used to take her on. It was Mum’s preferred place of peace and tranquillity, so worth the long drive. Something rare grew there. Strange. Gramps had asked her about their walks.

Sadness. No parents. Her thoughts went to Lucas.

Although she had only known him for a short time, she dreaded the thought of him going back to prison. He shouldn’t be in prison. It sounds like he was just lost and got caught up in the wrong things. She would help him work a way around going back to prison.

There was music and voices in the passageway now. She turned and walked towards the sounds.

A man stood next to Lucas. He was thin, lanky, with a bit of a belly, in his fifties maybe. He saw her. “You must be Isabella.” He walked towards her and put out his hand. “I’m James Black, a friend of your grandfather’s. He told me to expect you and your friend, Lucas.”

She shook his hand. It was calloused, perhaps from chopping firewood. “Friend . . . We’ve just met. Could you tell us where we are?”

“Yes, certainly. You’re not far from your granddad’s place—just more into the bush, more concealed. Really in the thick of it, so to speak. That’s the way I like it.’

“How do you know Gramps?”

“We came across each other out here in the bush. Our friendship grew through many walks. We both had secrets and kept them to ourselves for many years but over time we came to trust each other. And he has told me about his past and your mum’s situation.”

Secrets? “Mum’s situation?” Isabella was spooked.

“People were after your mum, Isabella.”

“Why?” Isabella said. She looked at Lucas, who seemed to be sizing up this man.

“Do you know why?” Lucas asked.

“She was onto something and got to the point where she could trust nobody except her Dad.”

“Onto something?” Isabella asked.

“Your granddad told me what a clever woman your mum was. And I could believe that, after your granddad confided in me some of the things he got up to.” He shrugged. “Come, let’s go to the lounge room. It’s warmer.”

They followed him into a large room that was indeed warmer and was a combination of lounge, dining, and kitchen. A pot-belly stove sat in the far corner of the room, its shape resembling the man. There were books everywhere, on the timber floor, on the timber table, on the lounge chairs. There were also sketches of birds on loose pieces of paper.

Black pulled out a chair from under the table and gestured for them to do the same. Isabella had to remove a book from her chair. The title included the words End Times. That fitted in with the feel of the place. She showed the cover to Lucas, who looked puzzled. She placed the book on the table.

“Yep, your mum was a smart lady. And that’s why you’re here. She discovered something. I don’t know what, but I know your granddad feared for her life and put a strategy into place to action in the event of your mother’s death and the authorities catching up with him. I was part of the strategy, and sadly, your granddad was right. But you had to be protected. That’s the role of your friend Lucas, and to a lesser extent, me.”

Black got up from his seat and walked over to the sink. He poured some water in a kettle placed it on top of the pot-belly. He came back and sat down.

“I knew things were happening. The sound of the helicopter hovering near your granddad’s property was loud. This house shook from the noise. They finally got him. He knew that would eventually happen, too.” Black turned towards Lucas. “Do you have some notes with you?”

“Yep, they’re actually funny sheets, in the briefcase.”

“You may want to go and get them.”

Lucas hesitated and then got up. Isabella watched him leave the room. She felt uneasy sitting alone with this man.

“You hungry? Let me make you some French toast. It’s one of my specialities although I like to call it eggy bread. It goes by a few other names and I eat it any time of the day. You can tell I’ve been living by myself for too long. What a boring subject: French toast.

At least he was trying. And she was a bit peckish.

“Yes, that would be nice. Tell me another name.”

“Spanish toast. See it’s not really French. Think of French fries. They’re not French. It’s just a name someone picked up somewhere.”

Isabella smiled. He was harmless. “But you know French fries are different to the big fat chips, so maybe there is a connection. A French connection.” With that, Isabella thought of Mrs Perdu—she was not harmless. Isabella felt her chest tightening.

32 – Hello pressure

IT WAS OBVIOUS THEY WERE TIRED from their adventure—or misadventure. James Black gave the girl the spare room and the man took the couch. He heard the girl sneezing for a while, but what could he do? She accepted a box of tissues with a smile and a red nose. When sleep did come upon them, they slept long and deep.

James was jittery but calm enough to make them breakfast. The girl recommended eggy bread to her friend, who seemed famished and apologised for the amount of toast he ate. Black’s encounters with people were normally outside on the deck and were normally just with Pops—the girl’s granddad—who only made the occasional trip inside to the toilet. Now he had strangers in his house, and how long were they going to be here?

Black wasn’t sure what to do. He had offered to help his friend but now that reality had set in he wasn’t sure if he was up to it. She was a pretty thing. Looked a little like his own daughter—then again, most girls he saw reminded him of his daughter—familiarity, all to do with comforting his ego from his past shipwreck of a life. He messed up that relationship and had a continual ache in his heart. He realised a benefit of being isolated would be no triggers setting off emotions attached to memories sitting in the grey matter above his shoulder.

That Lucas fellow also looked familiar. It’s because you’re a visual person, Jimmy. You see things others don’t, so chill because you don’t know him. He shuddered. They must have left the door open. As he walked towards the door he had the urge to turn around. He sensed something in the room, but nothing other than an empty room.

He decided he might have to stop reading some of the books, particularly the ones which spooked him, the ones about demons. Those books gave him uneasy feelings, akin to what he felt now.