Stepping out of the car, I fight the urge to hug myself. The foreboding is rolling down from the hills. Part of me wants nothing to do with this, just back out now, cry foul and be the little kid trusting the adults to deal with it. My strong conviction is deserting me. That annoying inner voice keeps asking – what do we even hope to achieve out here? We’ve driven out to a place we’ve been warned never to go on the whim of a woman who’s so psychologically damaged she regularly loses touch with reality. Plus two thieves, who were so bad at it they got caught. And to do what? Stand by a car and look around?

I hear Sam’s door open and close. Rhi hasn’t moved, other than to wind down her window. All the doubts and questions inside me are diving over her face. The urge to get back in the car is intense.

‘Tace.’ Sam’s voice comes from across the top of the car. He’s looking at me with a steady faith. ‘Aunty said we had to be here. So just be here.’

I used to have that kind of faith in Nan. Unshakeable. Having that disappear had destroyed the bedrock of confidence I’d had inside, the core of who I was went out the window and I had to find something to replace it. Science is logical. If I can hypothesise it, prove its existence through experiments, it is true. My logical mind is telling me clearly that I’ve been operating on instinct and I need to stop this headlong rush forwards and think.

‘What if she’s wrong?’ I blurt out.

‘If ya didn’t believe her, then what are we doin ere?’ I thought he’d be angry, but he just seems confused. I don’t blame him, I am too. I’d pushed to be here. But now there’s no one to fight with, I have to listen to my own doubts.

‘Tace,’ Rhi asks through the window. ‘Let’s just leave, ay? This place don’t feel right.’

I take a breath and shove it down where the things I can’t deal with go.

‘We’re ere now, might as well look around.’

‘Tace.’ I hear the fear in her voice and smile reassuringly. I’ve been such a bitch to her and Rhi doesn’t deserve it. Not really … not most of the time … not this time anyway.

‘You don’t have to come, Rhi. We won’t be long.’

Looking at Sam I raise an eyebrow. ‘Which way you reckon?’

‘Homestead’s that way.’ He points east. ‘From what Dad says it should be a fair ways.’