A bird called, somewhere nearby, a harsh croak like so many of the birds in this country. Flora woke, blinking and stretching, enjoying a slow return to reality, then looked around. Clementine was not there.

She probably had become bored and walked back to the house. The rock was easier to climb from this side. But what if she had fallen, hurt herself, been bitten by a snake?

‘Clementine!’ She searched, but could not see her. The child must have gone back to the house then. But she ran nonetheless, scrambling over the rocks. Taylor was crossing the courtyard. ‘Have you seen Miss Clementine?’

‘No, missus.’

Into the kitchen, a small oven within the larger one that was an Overflow summer, where Mrs Taylor mashed potatoes, still with their skins on them as too precious to waste.

‘Has Clementine come back to the house?’ she panted.

‘No, Mrs Clancy.’ Mrs Taylor swept the sweat from her forehead, one hand with a bloody scratch from a splinter acquired carrying in the wood for the stove. ‘She’s probably with her pa down the sheds. Does you want the kangaroo tail or the mutton chops for dinner?’

‘Either,’ said Flora, gathering her skirts and running, running to the shearing sheds, where Clancy and Ezekiel were scraping dried dung off the slats with spades. Flora gazed around wildly, but there was no sign of the little girl. ‘Clancy! Clementine is missing! We were at the pool up in the gully and I fell asleep.’

Her father-in-law’s face accused her, this woman who could not even keep a child in sight. ‘That’s bad, a lost child in the bush. Taylor!’ he yelled. ‘Gather up the men!’

Clancy took her arm. ‘They’ll find her.’ But she could read worry in his face too. ‘Come and show me this pool.’

He helped her over the rock. She scrambled up to the pool, pointed to where their basket still lay. ‘We were asleep together. When I woke, she was gone.’

Clancy gazed at the pool. ‘I had no idea this was here. I thought those rocks just led to the cliff.’

‘Rose brought us here. The pool was full of lily flowers then. Clementine,’ she was crying now, ‘was so disappointed the lilies had finished blooming. But there was one left. See, there, in the middle of the pool.’

But Clancy was kneeling at the pool. ‘The lilies’ leaves are broken on this side,’ he said.

She shook her head, uncomprehendingly.

‘Could Clementine have tried to pick the flower?’

‘No, of course not.’ But now Flora looked, she could see how to a child the lily leaves might look firm enough to walk on. How the weight of clothes might have dragged her down so swiftly. How that bird call might have been the frantic croak of a child being pulled under the water, tangled in lily stems so she was unable to struggle to the surface . . .

No.

Her mind stopped. No. No. No.