The new school was meant to be a fresh start, but the pattern quickly reverted. Just ignore them, her foster mother said. They’ll soon get bored. So every afternoon she headed home across the bridge, eyes down, ignoring the seven boys. But they refused to be ignored. And there was no sign of boredom when they started pelting her with stones. She decided a change of tactics was needed. When one of them came at her with a dead rat she whipped out a knife. Six of the boys dropped their stones and ran. The seventh stayed, waving the rat in her face. She pointed the knife at his throat. He backed away until he was hard up against the rail of the bridge. She heard the whistle of the train just before she pushed him over.
The coroner said she’d been an exemplary witness. The six boys maintained silence. She maintained years of invisibility until she could leave. Many jobs, many countries, many lives.
Thirty years later she returned. She went back to stand on the bridge one last time, to measure how far she’d travelled. Rounding the corner she saw an unfamiliar scene. No bridge. No railway tracks. New houses filled the spaces. New children filled the gardens.
She stopped roaming and bought a house with a garden. When she began to dig she found the earth was full of bones. Human ash. Pets loved long ago. Roots entwined in lost rings. Moonlight trapped in tall grass. Shredded dreams drifting like smoke alongside scents of soil and sheep. Sighs of the newly dead. Cries of the newly born. She remembered the songs her mother used to sing in the before-time. She planted the songs and listened to the garden fill with music.
Sandra Arnold lives in Canterbury, New Zealand. She is the author of five books including three novels, a non-fiction work and a collection of flash fiction. Her work has been widely published and anthologised in New Zealand and internationally, placed and short-listed in various competitions and received nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfictions and The Best Small Fictions. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Central Queensland University, Australia.
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