Chapter 2

      Chapter Two

It was amazing how comfortable the old four-poster bed had been.  When she woke up the next morning, the sun streaming through the window onto her doona, Lacey felt like Sleeping Beauty.  It was as if she’d awoken from a nightmare and her life was about to start.  Bounding out of bed and slipping her feet into her calf length ugg boots, she reached onto the bedside table and grabbed a hairband, pulling up her raven hair and twisting it into a knot on the top of her head.  On her way past, she ducked into the bathroom she was to share with Aunt Beth and gave her face a refreshing splash. 

“Sleep well?” 

Aunt Beth was standing at the counter of the country kitchen, a large canister of breakfast cereal in her hand.

Lacey came to the other side and picked up a carton of juice, pouring a glass for herself and her aunt.  “Like a dream.  That bed is amazing.”

Aunt Beth gave a hint of a smile.  She wasn’t about to tell Lacey that it wasn’t so much the bed that was amazing as the poppet doll she’d filled with lavender, dandelion and rosemary and put under Lacey’s pillow.  That and a loving invocation had ensured a sound sleep for her troubled niece.

“What are your plans for today, Lace?”  Aunt Beth asked as they sat down to a breakfast of homemade muesli.

“Um, well. If you don’t need me to do anything for you, I thought I might take a walk around town.  Re-acquaint myself.  If I take my camera I might even be inspired to get a few shots.”

“I don’t think you’ll see anyone in town that you know, Lace.  Most of the kids you knew have gone to University in the city.  A couple went to Agricultural College and one or two stayed on the farms with their parents.” Lacey looked at her Aunt.  She didn’t need any reminders that she was a year behind the eightball.  It was going to be bad enough going to a new school on Monday.

“Why don’t you go down to the Willow Walk?  If you take the cliff path around the river you’ll get to Angel’s Maze.  It looks really pretty.  The council’s cleaned it up and they’ve even employed a young man from out of town to do maintenance on the statue of St Michael the Archangel and the other statues in the park. Someone finally realised they could be a tourist attraction. ”

“That sounds like a plan,” Lacey replied.

*****

The gravel along the Willow Walk crunched under her feet.   Long branches of the trees that gave it its name dragged on the ground like strands of green mermaid’s hair swirling in the tide. Intrigued at their movement, Lacey took out her camera and snapped a few close ups, looking at the results in the viewing pane.  She shook her head, annoyed with herself.  You couldn’t get a true idea of the shot until it was enlarged, of course, but even she could see they were crap.  Since her Mother’s death every thing had turned to crap.  That was why she’d failed her finals, not passed Year 12.  Her life had been crap and masking it with a different form of crap hadn’t changed a thing.  All it did was make her feel worse than she already did.  When would her mojo return?  It was as if she was lost in the darkest wood, without a torch, and though she bashed at the bushes with her sword she couldn’t get out.  Worse still, no one came to rescue her when she called.

Putting her camera strap back over her shoulder, Lacey trudged off down the path. It took a few minutes but as a breeze blew against her face, she realised that she’d been so deep in thought that the scenery around her had changed without her even noticing. So much for taking in the sites. She was standing at the edge of Angel’s Bend Cliff, the waterfall below her and she hadn’t even seen it.  Not that the Seraphim Falls were anything to rave about.  The water, slower further up the river, peaked here and twisted its way to a precipice where it fell a few metres in cascades of white that crashed onto the rock below onto to be reborn as a new river.  Nothing spectacular. She watched as a stick floated down on the current, it’s bobbing becoming more frantic as it got closer to the time when it would be thrust out into the mid air of the falls and go crashing under at the bottom.  She wondered what it would be like to drown.  Not nice, she decided and set off again.

Up the road from the falls, Lacey crossed the Seraphim Bridge, still following the path that led her at last to the river park.  It was just your average park - playground, picnic and barbecue areas, lots of shade trees but the thing that set it apart was the gravestones dotted around the edge like a stone fence. Nobody knew the history of how or why they got there and nobody who lived in the town paid much heed.  A couple of kids were even using them in a game of stepping stones.  Kneeling down near one, Lacey turned on her camera.  Gravestones.  An unlikely subject but could prove useful inspiration given her immediate past.  She took a few shots at different angles and using different light settings, then sat down on the grass to survey her efforts.  That wasn’t bad.  She rolled to her stomach and snapped ten or so more, reviewing as she went.  These were the first shots she’d taken in months that were actually worth keeping. 

Sitting up, Lacey put her camera aside and looked around the park.  At the bottom was Angel’s Maze, its centrepiece statue of the Saint Michael the Archangel poking proudly from the middle.  It was meant to entice people into the maze because you knew, when you reached it, that you had reached the centre.  The prize, so to speak, was the intricate carvings around the bottom of the statue, unable to be seen from outside the maze. When Lacey was eight, she’d been here one day with her parents.  Dad had taken her in the maze after a rare argument with Mum.  She’d refused point blank claiming claustrophobia of all things.  Funny, Lacey thought, Mum’d never been afraid of small spaces before that day.  Funny too, that she’d forgotten about the event until now.

Looking down at the maze, Lacey noticed something strange.  A bird or something was sitting on the top.  She trained her lens towards it and zoomed in.  It wasn’t a bird.  It was a boy.  Around her own age possibly.  He was sitting at the top of the statue, right on Michael’s shoulder, almost as if he were having some type of conversation with him.  How odd. 

Lacey stood and moved closer, snapping as she went.  Suddenly she was full of inspiration for her work.  She saw the idea for her final exhibition clearly in her head.  It would be a study of angels, centred around the statue and made from a variety of medium.  She clicked again.  All she had to do was go into the maze and get some shots from different angles.  There were smaller angels there too, to fuel her imagination.  It would be brilliant.

Pleased, she raced down the hill to the maze entrance.  The boy was still there and now, up close, she could see the brilliant green of his eyes, framed by dark lashes, as they stared at her. Putting her camera to her eye, she took one more shot in silhouette.  It was perfect.