Miki’s anxiety escalated. If the loggers came this far, what would happen to her favourite tree? To those men, a forest was just logs to take out on a truck. Money in the bank. Food for their bellies. A payment on a large-screen TV. Petrol in the tank. Her tree would be worth nothing because its core was rotten; they would hack it down. ‘What can we do?’ she asked Kurt. ‘Should we move the hives?’

‘We won’t need to worry for a while. It’ll take weeks for the loggers to get here.’

‘Isn’t there some way we can stop them?’

Kurt nestled the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and swung the muzzle back the way they’d just come, tilting his head to squint through the sights. ‘I could shoot them,’ he said.

Miki’s skin went cold. ‘You wouldn’t.’

He lowered the gun and inspected her with cold eyes. ‘Of course I wouldn’t. We haven’t worked this hard to throw it all away.’

What about the new ute, she thought. Wasn’t that throwing it all away?

Kurt spent a long time in the forest that morning while Miki huddled in the car, fretting about her trees. Around her, the forest shifted and sighed as if nothing was different. It felt wrong that everything could seem normal here when it definitely wasn’t.

On the way home, Kurt was grimly silent and refused to be drawn into conversation about the loggers. He disappeared into his room under the shop for an hour, then took off to Hobart in a terrible mood.

As soon as he was gone, the knot in Miki’s chest eased. She was still feeling wretched, but she knew a way to make herself feel better. She fetched her hidden key and let herself out, sucking in a lungful of fresh air as she closed the door behind her. Being outside somehow loosened her mind. She needed to figure out what to do about the logging, and the best way to think was to walk.

Her feet took her down past the primary school and onto the road to the forest, her pace quickening as she felt the pull towards freedom. Walking felt good. Cars whizzed by, blasting her with wind, but she didn’t mind. She liked the beat of her boots on the ground, the warmth that crept through her despite the damp cold, the fact that Kurt didn’t know where she was. She passed small green farms and houses with smoke threading from their chimneys. Dogs dashed out to bark at her, hackles raised. She avoided eye contact and carried on.

On the crest of a hill, she heard a car coming and glanced back to see a large white four-wheel drive roaring towards her from town. Instead of passing, it slowed and stopped beside her. Miki noticed the Parks logo on the door.