Whispers By The Lake

Chapter One

1968

Have you ever felt like your life is at a standstill? Like, everyone around you is moving forward with their lives but you're stuck in the one place just watching them?

Well, that's how I have felt for the past seventeen years of being on this planet. Stuck. Up until yesterday when I finally celebrated my eighteenth birthday, that is.

Okay, so 'celebrated' may be the wrong word to describe it. I awoke in my foster home's bedroom, which I shared with a moody fifteen-year-old girl, then went out to face the chaos over breakfast - four more younger foster siblings who fought over the same box of cereal every morning. My foster father had already left for work, leaving my disheveled foster mother to make sure all kids were fed, dressed and groomed in time for school.

I had stood at the kitchen doorway, flinching at the high-pitched squeals erupting out of the lungs of an eight-year-old, who had seized the box of Weet-Bix and was refusing to let go.

I waited patiently for somebody, anybody to notice me, but they were too self-adsorbed in their own drama.

No one had remembered my birthday. I had been with the family for three years and not once had they remembered.

So I had returned to my bedroom, grabbed my ratty old tote bag which I had bought with my own pocket money, full of the very little belongings I owned and walked out of there without looking back.

I had left a note, of course, thanking the Andersons for the roof over my head for three years, and explained it was time to venture out into the world on my own. It was time for my life to finally start.

I had scoured the newspapers for a job for weeks leading up to my birthday, praying I would get something far enough away from Brisbane, and could start as soon as I turned eighteen. I couldn't believe my luck when an old geezer from a small country town south-west of Brisbane called Providence, wanted a cleaner for his massive Queenslander home on a vineyard estate. And I was hired!

Which brings me to my two and a half hour long bus ride from Brisbane to Providence. I mean, come on. How could I not start fresh in a place called that? It had to be a sign.

By the time the bus pulled up at the beginning of a deserted road in Providence, I was the only one left. Staring out the window at the green rolling hills, sparse trees and scattered livestock, I couldn't help but smile to myself. This place was nothing like the hustle and bustle of Brisbane, and I loved it.

I couldn't, however, see a massive Queenslander home on a vineyard estate.

"Miss?" I heard the bus driver say, shifting my focus from the beautiful landscape to the overweight middle-aged man who was sweating profusely from the heat. "Isn't this your stop?"

I scoffed. "Uh, no," I replied. "Tate Estate. Does this look like a vineyard to you?"

He outstretched his arm and pointed directly down the dusty road. "I believe the place you're looking for is that way. I can't take the bus down an unsurfaced road."

"Well, I can't wear these heels on an unsurfaced road," I snapped back, gesturing towards my white t-bar heels.

The man sighed in annoyance. "Are you getting off the bus or not, lady?"

"Fine," I pouted, grabbing my tote bag from the seat beside me before making my way down the aisle of the bus. I avoided eye contact, but could feel him watching me with amusement as I stepped off the bus.

"City girl, aren't ya?" I heard him say, making me turn around to face him.

"Excuse me?"

"Your dress, your heels. You're gonna be a fish out of water in this town. The bus arrives at this stop midday daily if you decide this place isn't for you," he informed me with a wink.