Australian Urban Fantasy Book Series
Enchanted Australia by Gillian Polack
Series Excerpt
Lil and Mabel had a little excursion.
“We had to check something out,” Mabel explained to the others, afterwards.
“And what was this ‘something’?” Ann’s voice held a dangerous edge. She was not happy about being left out.
“It happened very quickly,” said Lil. “We were shopping.”
“Presents,” said Mabel gloomily. “I hate shopping for presents.”
“So you took Lil.” Ann’s voice almost lost its edge.
“I always do. Otherwise my family would get nothing, ever.”
“My Mum’s like that,” Kat offered. “Would rather give money than find something nice.”
“I never give money,” sniffed Mabel. “I borrow Lil and she finds appropriate garbage and then everyone’s happy.”
“Except something happened while you were out?”
“Yes, Ann.” Lil’s voice softened and she told the tale. Mabel remained silent except for tiny grunts of agreement at key words: little treat, frolic. “Something happened.”
Lil and Mabel had met at Chalmers. It was no longer the best coffee shop in Manuka, but both of them were creatures of habit, and they had met there for years. When they had started it was the best coffee shop in the whole city, which, said Lil, caused her to instantly lower her expectations of Canberra coffee.
Whenever Mabel felt in a funk about shopping for family, Lil and she started with a nice cup of coffee or tea and a shared piece of cake. It turned the shopping into a ritual and gave them time-out from the more difficult side of life. The staff at the shop knew them and would recommend this cake or that chocolate. This meant they always started off these little expeditions feeling just a bit spoiled.
While they were enjoying their little treat, they couldn’t help overhearing the two people at the next table. The acoustics at Chalmers are like that.
One of them was very upset.
“Calm down,” her friend said. “You’ll spill the coffee.”
“I don’t care about the damn coffee. I want to forget the last half hour. I want to wipe it from my mind. I want it never to have happened.”
“You know you don’t,” coaxed the young man. (“He’s holding her hand and stroking it,” whispered Mabel.) “You know you’re dying to tell me.”
“You don’t know a thing.”
“I know that if you bottle it up, you’ll hate it even more. And maybe we can take it to the police. I bet we can. I’ll be there, with you, the whole way.”
“Not the police,” she whispered. “There’s nobody, nobody can help. It’s just too awful.”
“Tell me then, get it out of your system, at least.”
There was a long silence.
“I was walking up to St Christopher’s. I nearly went in. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be a nice place to get married,’ then I thought about just how set you were on the Botanic Gardens. Besides, it wasn’t open. Then I saw some blokes walking out of it. Small guys. Big hair. I called out, ‘Is it open? Is the cathedral open?’ I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check. Maybe it’d be totally awful and if I hadn’t checked then I couldn’t tell you that you were right and you wouldn’t laugh at me and we’d miss some fun.”
She paused. (“She’s drinking water,” whispered Mabel.)
“They all stopped at once. They turned and looked up. They were so short. And their eyes. Their eyes. Big and staring. Glassy. Horrible. One of them said to me, ‘Only some parts are open, and you don’t want to go to those parts, young missie.’
“‘Not till we are finished our little frolic. Doin’ the rounds, we are,’ another one said. ‘After we’ve checked the very last restaurant and drunk their last drop, we can have fun with you then.’
“‘Our brothers are there now, and their idea of fun is different.’
“‘No, don’t go there now. You won’t like their idea of fun’
“And they all turned away at once, like a befouled corps de ballet, and they walked down the street, to Manuka.”
“That’s why you wanted to come here.”
“It’s not a restaurant. Chalmers doesn’t even serve alcohol,” she said. “I never want to see those horrible things again.”
“I’m taking you home,” her fiancé said. “We’ll order home delivery.”
“Yes, please,” she said. “And we’re not coming to Manuka ever again, and we’re getting married in the Botanic Gardens even if the mosquitoes make me blotched all over.”
“I love you, you know,” he said.
And they left.
“Do you know what that was about?” Mabel asked across the table, addressing her question as much at the cups and plates as at her friends. “If it was a practical joke, it was a bloody good one.”
“Abbey lubbers. Drunken sots, all. It can’t be anything else. That look, the way she said they moved, the drinking binge. Abbey lubbers,” Lil said. “I ran into them once, in England, a long time ago. They should not be here. They should not be here.”
“Dangerous?” Mabel’s voice was sharp. “Hunt in packs?”
“Yes and no, and sometimes. They are more dangerous when they’re inebriated and they will find wine almost anywhere.”
“Restaurants,” said Mabel.
“Indeed. The threat to the girl was probably false, however. They love drama and affect.”
“But if there are a lot living in there together and they get drunk together . . .”
“That they let themselves be seen is unusual.”
“In Australia, things are different. Maybe they’re not quite so safe for us here.”
“That is precisely what concerns me. We must fix this.”
“Kat?”
“I forgot Kat.” Lil frowned.
“She needs training. So far we’ve been all tell and no show.”
“Something safe, first, to build her up.”
“Yes. These creatures don’t sound like a good place to start.”
This is what they explained to Kat and Ann. Something had to be done, they both concurred on that, but Kat needed more training first, just in case.
“It was not good.” Lil summed up. “It was bad enough to necessitate an excursion.”
“It has to be dealt with,” said Ann, nodding firmly. Kat thought she was like one of those anime characters, where the nod says more than the words. Ann would forgive Lil and Mabel this time, but she was going to lead the expedition. Or she will give them what-for, giggled Kat, to herself.
Before things could get more interesting, they were derailed entirely.
“Can I tell her my Lake George joke now?” asked Mabel plaintively.
“NO!” chorused her two friends.
“I can tell you something I found out, instead,” offered Kat. “It’s not a big something and it’s not a joke.” She was emboldened by the trio finally suggesting she do something other than sit around listening to stories or be taken on a carefully overplanned ghost trail. Not that she didn’t love listening to stories or seeing bits of ghost, but she wanted more. Much more.
“Out with it,” said Mabel.
“One of those misty figures — the ones that whisper and make everyone feel that the world is evil, so, someone commented on it on a Canberra gossip website.”
“Interesting,” said Lil. “What did they say?”
“This guy saw it up close. It was a girl, about my age, and she was near a stream. He said he’s seen her three times and she’s always been near the stream, but that the stream moves.”
“Like the streets,” whispered Ann.
“Yes,” said Kat. “And there’s more. He’s so scared of her that he turns and walks the other way whenever he sees her. He says she drowned a mate of his. He wouldn’t say how and he stopped posting at all when everyone else started asking questions.”
“We might have to find out more,” said Ann.
“Agreed,” said Mabel.
“I don’t like it,” whispered Lil. “It’s not an old spirit and it’s not a ghost. That’s two incidents in a very short time. It suggests something . . . something . . .”
“I heard a story today,” said Kat, trying to help. “I mean, I read a story, online. Another story.”
“Tell us,” said Lil, accepting the outstretched arm.
“Someone was looking for the treasure on Black Mountain. You know, the one that was supposed to have been hidden by a bushranger. He couldn’t find anything, but he told a bunch of people on a website. They started talking about it. Some people talked about the treasure and some people talked about the bushranger. One bloke said that he had seen a group of figures on horseback, last Sunday, on Black Mountain, near the Telstra Tower. He was far enough away so he couldn’t really make them out. They were shadowy, maybe. Anyhow, they were really loud. I mean, their voices were really loud, but he couldn’t make out the words. He said that they were arguing about something. They got really mad and they were shooting at each other. He said they looked really dangerous. The guy watching stayed really quiet until they were all gone. Then he went to investigate.”
“Did he find anything?” asked Ann, intently.
“He did,” said Kat, triumphantly. “I wrote it all down, too. He found a pile of goods and with them a list, which he thought referred to the pile of goods. He said they looked pretty much as if they could be the same things, though he didn’t know enough about these things to find out. The writing was really old-fashioned.”
“Copperplate?” asked Mabel.
“He didn’t say. He did write down the list though — d’you want to hear it?”
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