Heartstrings

Heartstrings
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TITLE PAGE:

HEARTSTRINGS
By Annemor Hill
(Annie Otness)
Copyright 2012
Contents:
Chapter Title words

Chapter One: Haste ye to the wedding 6147
Chapter two The Wedding 4272
Chapter three The storm of ice 5059
Chapter four One door closes 5406
Chapter five Turning away 4573
Chapter six The iridescent bubble 3284
Chapter seven The more things stay the same 2380
Chapter eight The Circle dance 3799
Chapter nine Light at the end 4085
Chapter ten Love and death 2510
Chapter eleven Offers and refusals 3637
Chapter twelve North over the horizon 6430
Chapter thirteen The girls’ room 4201
Chapter fourteen After the ball 3974
Chapter fifteen Another log on the fire 1410
TOTAL WORDS 63170

Heartstrings

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Chapter 1. Haste ye to the wedding

Aidan was driving, but his mind was far away, and, missing the turn off, he did not realise for
almost an hour, that it had gone away behind him.
He nearly stopped his new 4-wheel drive troop-carrier, then and there, but decided instead to
carry on until he could find a truck bay, or an overnight camping spot at the roadside, to spend
the night. He had tried before to turn back, but became oppressed, almost nauseous, and
overpoweringly exhausted if he headed back East towards Sydney, and all that he had left
behind.
Around the roadway stretched the undulating, desolate lands. Sparse, twisted mallee, banksia,
and hakea trees, were scattered on the land, their trunks dark scribbles, and the greyish foliage
spattered thinly, too low to break the distant sharp clear line of the horizon. The under-scrub
consisted of thickets of wodjil, with grey leaved grevilleas, broom honey myrtle, and yellow
flowering puffs of acacia. Clouds were scattered like sheep on the pure china-shining blue
above, and he smiled in anticipation, for the golden time would come in a hour or two, and
regardless, he would stop, get out, maybe take the camera to capture it, or just watch and
enjoy the changing light.
He drove on for another hour. The vehicle was neither fast nor comfortable, and on the
bitumen road it was out of it's element, as it was designed to take him off the road, into the
scrub, and away where he could be as he wished - one to one. face to face with his land.
Excitement had been building in him today. But it was a thin, sour thing, like vomit held
back in his throat, and had no warmth, no blaze to it, no butter or bread or meat in it. But it
was there, and it filled the empty cold space that he had been skirting around, watching within
himself for nearly a year now.

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It was coming, though. The need, the love, the power. The power was regenerating, and he
was glad of this thin, nasty excitement, this nervous, twitchy feeling, like quick glances
behind, at the shadow that followed him.
He longed for a smoke, but would not stop, not until he found a place to stop for the night, a
safe, kind, empty place, with a screen of scrub for his campfire, where he could lay his strung
out body on the cold earth, wrapped in the swag, on the groundsheet, on the ground, to stare
into the darkness, unsleeping, glad to be awake in the darkness in the night, listening to the
night sounds, waiting peacefully, watching patiently, for the first pre-dawn lifting on the
horizon, the dead chill of the early hours, and the anticipation of the glorious luxury of the
fiery dawn skies.
He decided to count his blessings. Mum had been a great blessing-counter, although now that
he had committed the unforgivable, her stoic habitual pride had collapsed before him.
‘Why didn't you tell me before?’
‘Jesus H Christ Mum! It's hard enough to tell you now.’
‘But why did you marry her, if you were that way?’
‘I'm not that way, Mum.’
‘But you just told me......’
He interrupted, ‘You didn't listen, Mum. You didn't listen.’
‘I know what I heard, Aidan. I know what you said to me. Its a good thing your father isn't
alive to hear it.’
His control evaporated in the heat of his blood. He heard it singing in his ears,