She sifted through books at the farmstead, still sitting in boxes, awaiting shelves and her mother’s enthusiasm. Viola had been momentarily buoyed by the sight of green shoots in the tilled plots outside, until she realised it was November, not the time of year for that kind of thing, and these were nothing but hardy weeds. If this continued, there would be more visits. First the headmaster, then the doctor – who would come next?

‘What are you looking for?’ her mother called distractedly from the veranda, disturbed by the sound.

Viola sat amongst piles of mildewed Penguin editions and dictionaries in various languages.

‘Do we have any books on, like, magic and spells and stuff?’

No answer drifted back.

Viola considered handing the girls the Kendricks’ copy of Macbeth. Maybe it was one of the Shakespeare texts that Michael had hinted were forbidden. There was no cross-dressing in the play and only a suggestion of sex, as far as Viola could remember, but there was plenty of double, double toil and trouble.

Viola had seen how the congregation quivered over that letter about ‘mystic cards’ and ‘polished stones’. A similar letter (minus the fire and brimstone) had gone out to parents at Viola’s old school when an obsession for Ouija boards swept through Year Eight, but the parents back home had scoffed at it – necromancy and fortune-telling were bunkum, and the girls having nightmares needed to snap out of it, quit attention-seeking.

What exactly would Viola be saying by giving the girls a copy of Macbeth? That there was a parallel? Three Eldest Girls, three weird sisters. She threw the play text back into its box.

She trawled the estate land next, hoping to find a stone in the shape of a heart or a lucky clover with an extra leaf. She could press the sprig between the pages of the heavy atlas, then affix it to a neat piece of card, explaining its auspiciousness when handing it over (just in case four-leafers didn’t have the same meaning on Lark). She would be like one of those colonial explorers ingratiating themselves with an isolated tribe before engaging in their local rituals.

But she found nothing, only attracted, once again, the attention of the stooped and bearded gamekeeper. He pulled up alongside her in his tarped-over Land Rover, asking her why she was out on the hills alone.

‘You reckon it’s a good idea, do you, wandering about like this?’

His questions confused her, containing as they did echoes of the mainland rules, the ones that made it Viola’s responsibility not to put herself in a vulnerable position, not to make herself easy prey – the ones that weren’t supposed to apply here.

‘I’m just walking my dog,’ she told him.

‘Well, keep it away from the cattle,’ he replied.

‘Oh, she doesn’t chase anything that big, only rabbits.’

‘I’m thinking of the diseases she’ll have from that mainland of yours.’