‘She is asleep. What do you think you can do?’ Caleb asked.

‘So many bad snakes in this country. I bring you this.’ With both hands, she held out a small package, wrapped in brown paper, tied with string and sealed with a blob of wax.

Caleb took the packet and turned it over. ‘What is it?’

‘It is Chinese medicine for snake bite. You must put in very hot water and let it be for half an hour and then feed it to the child.’

Caleb frowned. ‘What’s in it?’

‘That I do not know. When one of us goes to Melbourne, we visit the Chinese doctor and ask for medicine. Last year, Boon was bitten by tiger snake and we gave him this.’

‘Boon?’ The nominal leader of the Chinese who tended the market garden seemed hale and hearty enough. Caleb nodded and closed his fingers over the packet. He would try anything. ‘Thank you, Lin. I’ll give it to the boy.’

Lin ducked her head. ‘I must go now. We will light incense for the boy’s recovery.’

Caleb saw the woman to the door and turned back to Netty. ‘Put the kettle on.’

Netty scowled. ‘You’re not really going to give him that foreign muck are you?’

‘Why not? I’ve nothing else and I’m damned if I’m going to inject him with ammonia, which is the best idea Western medicine has come up with.’

Muttering, Netty turned back to the stove, setting the heavy kettle down with a bang.

The two of them stared at the bowl of what looked like sticks, leaves and dried fungi as it steeped in the middle of the kitchen table.

‘On your head be it,’ Netty said.

Caleb narrowed his eyes. ‘That is exactly right. On my head it is.’

They fed the brew to the boy in sips. He complained about the taste but took it and, mercifully, kept it down.

Danny had a small collection of books on a shelf above his chest of drawers. Caleb searched the titles and pulled out Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

‘Good book?’ he asked Danny.

Danny’s face crumpled. ‘Uncle Richard gave it to me,’ he said.

Caleb set the book back on the shelf.

‘No,’ Danny said. ‘Can you read it to me?’

‘Of course.’

Caleb pulled up a chair beside the bed and opened the book. It smelled of leather and ink, the unread pages crackling to his touch. He turned the book over. ‘Are you sure you want this story?’

Danny pulled the sheet up and nodded and Caleb began: ‘Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”’