A decade before Mathinna was born, the so-called Black War decimated the tribes. The white men, the Palawa realized too late, were devoid of morality. They lied while smiling at you and thought nothing of luring you into traps. The Palawa fought in vain with rocks and spears and waddies against roving parties of convicts and settlers who had been officially authorized by the British government to capture or kill any natives on sight. These men roamed the island with kangaroo dogs, hunting the Palawa for sport. As the Palawa continued to elude them, their tactics became more cunning. They camouflaged steel traps with eucalyptus leaves. They bound the men to trees and used them for target practice. They raped and enslaved Palawa women, infecting them with diseases that left them barren. They burned them with brands and dashed the brains of their children on the rocks.

When most of the Palawa had been killed off, the remaining few were rounded up and brought to Flinders. Here, they were forced into stiff British clothes with needless buttons and shoes that cramped their feet. The red ochre was scrubbed from their hair, which was clipped short, in the British style. They were made to sit in the dark chapel and listen to sermons about a hell they’d never imagined and moral instruction they didn’t need, singing hymns that promised salvation in exchange for suffering.

The Palawa had been told that their time on Flinders would be temporary, that soon they’d be granted land of their own—or rather, given some of their own land back.

It had been ten years. They were still waiting.

The rain fell in sheets. It trickled down Mathinna’s neck, finding the gaps in her cape, soaking through her cotton dress to the skin. Deep in her chest she could feel a thickening, the beginnings of a cold. Her eyes were itchy with exhaustion and her stomach was empty. She could hunt for swans’ eggs, but that would mean heading into the open grasses. If she went to the beach in search of mussels, she’d be easy to spot from the ridge. Though she had never caught a muttonbird, she’d watched Palle do it: he dipped his hand inside a hole in the ground as wide as a large oyster shell, and if the air was cold, he pulled his hand out quickly; it might be a snake den—but if it was warm, it was probably a muttonbird nest. He’d reach in, grab the bird, and yank it out, twisting its neck to snap it.

The problem was, Mathinna didn’t have fire. Even the hardiest elders, the ones who tore into the muttonbirds as soon as most of the sticky feathers were burned off, didn’t eat them raw.

She gazed at the gum trees in the distance with bark as smooth and gray as wallaby bellies, and her eyes clouded with tears. She missed her pet, Waluka, an albino ringtail possum with pink ears she’d found abandoned and raised from birth. She missed the warmth of Palle’s arms.