The mines, marvellous and terrible as any works of man, have laid the dust and sealed the roads. They have turned out the caverns and graves and secret places of the earth, overwritten Upper Spicer Street, Lower Spicer Street, and Pinnicke Road. Flowers from other regions, grasses from other forests brought in idly by wheels of earth-movers, putting down roots uninvited, to bloom and bob in the gardens of people who never thought they’d leave.

But still, in that cradle made by the vanishing towns, where fences sag ill-kept or still tick with the self-satisfaction of a well-built boundary, shadows flit and whisper through the trees. And such trees they are: bottle and box, paper and iron, thorned and blossomed in the light that moves unutterably between them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my parents, Mark and Mary: I turned some memories of my childhood to terrible purposes in these stories, but it was an enchanted time. To my sisters, Angela and Becky: thank you for your encouragement and support, and any vehicular infelicities are entirely my fault. To our neighbours out west: our life there was indelibly shaped by you all, for good. Also none of the people or events in this book are based on you.

To the Vision Writers’ Group of old: you first read the idea that would become the chapter “The School in the Wilderness,” and were my doorway into all the literary and illustration community I have today. To Kate Eltham in particular: this is what happened to Woodwild.

To Angela Slatter, Lisa Hannett and Delia Sherman: you all read a very early draft, and convinced me to pursue Bettina’s story further. Particular thanks to Angela, who is the midwife of this book, and who has made me the writer I am.

To Kim Wilkins and Lisa O’Connell: your advice on the project made me fall in love with research again, and with the beautiful sublime in Australian gothic books. The works of Joan Lindsay, Rosalie Ham and Shaun Tan taught me I wasn’t imagining that it was there. To Pamela Freeman and Jodi McAlister: it was a pleasure to deal with you in the academic as well as creative space. The Commonwealth Government Postgraduate Award and the Cecilie Anne Sloane Postgraduate English Creative Writing Research Scholarship made the degree and this project possible at all, as did the tolerance of my then employer, the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads. To Renee Rogowski: you have superpowers.

To Aimee Smith, Caitlene Cooke and Shayna Naran: you suffered more than friendship should be able to demand, and made the book look good.