Page 1 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
CHAPTER
1
‘Knittingpossums?’
Hannah Cody was on her second (okay, maybe third, but they were stingy pours) paper cup of prosecco, but surely she hadn’t heard Marigold correctly.
‘Knitting pouches for possums, my love. Orphaned baby ones. All knit no purl, so it’s a perfect beginner’s project. Craft is like honey, isn’t it, Vera? Sweet for the soul, balm for a wound.’
Vera De Rossi, Hannah’s soon-to-be sister-in-law, was smooshed up against Hannah’s brother Josh on the weathered trunk of a fallen snow gum, a fat brown dog sprawled over her boots. She was gazing up at the stars above Lake Bogong and avoided being drawn into the conversation by pretending she hadn’t heard.
Traitor.
‘I’m sweet enough, thanks, Marigold,’ Hannah said. A lie, and everyone on the rocky lakeside within hearing distance knew it.
Best not to think about wounds, either. Not tonight. Marigold had been in her ear all week, wittering on about New Year’s Eve being ripe with change and possibilities and, somehow, like a pernicious dose of tinnitus, the town’s busiest senior citizen’s words had stuck.
Change.
The idea that change might be possible, and wounds could be left behind, was why Hannah was here at the lake, mingling like a socialite while green and gold fireworks fizzed and popped in the night sky, rather than celebrating the closure of another safe year in the traditional way: in her bathtub with a book.
A clutch of kids raced past, the sparklers in their hands jumping and weaving like star puppets long after the kids’ silhouettes had dissolved into the darkness. Hannah’s heart grew a little heavier in her chest.
Marigold was right.
Not about the knitting. But about her desire for her life to change.
Safe had become boring. And lonely. And very, very dull.
Hannah followed Vera’s gaze up to the night sky and wondered if Josh’s fiancée saw the same things she saw. Vera had made her home in the lee of the mountains only recently, but Hannah? Hanrahan had always been her home. The sand was coarse and familiar under the heels of her old boots, and the stars above burned like the porch lights of old friends, brighter even than the driftwood bonfires along the lakeshore.
And beyond the lake, the mountains.
She couldn’t see the Snowies now, of course, but she knew they were there. Shefeltthem. Strong, resolute, steadfast: they were the backbone that she pretended to have oh so much of.
‘Pondering your resolutions, love?’ said Kev, Marigold’s husband. He’d dressed up for the lakeside festivities in a double-breasted plaid suit that made him look like a newsreader on the television, back before colour was invented.
‘Hi, Kev,’ she said, and glugged down another mouthful of the cheap prosecco she’d bought from one of the food trucks up on the grass. ‘I’ve already picked one,’ she said. ‘Make sure Josh gets more of the vet clinic’s middle-of-the-night callouts.’
Her brother pulled a face at her then went back to nuzzling his fiancée’s neck.
Revolting. Okay, fine, it was sweet. Yay them.
‘I’ve been giving Hannah some suggestions but she’s proving to be a little stubborn,’ said Marigold.
Josh snorted. ‘There’s a surprise.’
‘Joining my craft group is not only social and fun, it’s useful, too.’ Marigold was on a roll. ‘Dawn yoga is always an option, of course. There’s nothing like saluting the sun under the watchful eye of the pied currawongs to give your day a little zhoozh. Life hacks, I believe these sorts of resolutions are called these days, by the young and the trendy.’
Hannah grinned. ‘I’m not that trendy.’ Then her grin slipped; she wasn’t that young, either, now that she thought about it. Her birthday was only a few months away and as much as she’d been trying to not think about the age she’d be turning, her headspace was not cooperating and the wordsthirty-two, thirty-two, thirty-twohad been playing in an annoying loop.
‘You rode dressage when you were a youngster, as I recall,’ said Kev.
That was quite the conversational segue. ‘Um, yeah. Fancy you remembering. Tubby and I took it very seriously when I was about eleven or twelve. But then his owner came back from boarding school and Tubby didn’t need me to exercise him anymore, so that was the end of my competitive horse-riding career.’
‘Maybe not.’
‘What are you getting at, Kev? I’m starting to wonder if you’re going soft in the head,’ said his doting wife.
