There isn’t a sense of danger when the strut shifts. A minor irritation. A little runnel of sand like the grains in an eggtimer.

If the man had seen it, he could have called for Steven to grab the wooden ladder and lower it while there was still time. Or to toss one end of the knotted rope down the well and loop the other round the trunk of the banksia, aye.

If he had seen it and realised what was happening, that the gathering could not be stopped and there would be no time, I’d like to think he might have called to Steven, keeping his voice calm, to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen. A ruse to send the boy away.

But the plank of jarrah bursts suddenly from the rough scaffold holding back the earth while he works. Digger—Alfred—knows nothing.

But Steven … oh, my boy …

Steven is aware of it all.

He has just emptied a bag of lime into the wheelbarrow when he hears the crack of splitting timber, a cry as the strut hits the stranger’s head. Digger! he screams, scrambling across the grass to reach the collapsing mouth of the well. He leans in, reaching, but the loose sand is rippling like water. He grabs the rake, he tests his weight on the top rung of the scaffold, and then he does this reckless, senseless thing. He climbs down into the well.

Digger! he calls again. Nothing. Can you hear me? But there’s no movement in the cavern below other than the steady flow of sand.

A bang from the kitchen door and Steven looks up. The shocked face of his little sister appears over the lip of the frame as it gives way.

The whole thing, it just gives way.

Steven, my Steven, is trapped down the well, his leg wedged between the rake and a lattice of broken jarrah beneath. He tries to move the other leg, but sand is pouring in on him, the weight of the earth is holding him fast. The sole of that one free foot grinds down onto something, the hair and skin of the stranger’s head.

Already sand is gripping his little chest, pinning his arms, no time, no time.

Looking up, he can see a mouth of sunlight, suddenly cut in half as a plank of wood clangs across it. Then a dangle of skinny legs.

No! he screams into the rush of sand. Kathryn, no! Don’t …

His words are swallowed, his head locked upwards into the circle of light.

He blinks furiously, my little boy, he blinks until the end.

The last thing he sees is Kathryn’s legs being hauled up and out of the well. And then his Unty Clementina’s face.

November 1974

November 1974

Kathryn … Perhaps you understand a little more now, lambsie. About your mother, the way she is.