The Secret Heiress. Bethany Campbell

this is Conrad Nakumurrah, best blacksmith in the shire. Raddy, this is my Yank friend, Andrew Preston. He’s running for prez for the ITRF.”

      “Pleased to meet,” said Raddy. He shook Andrew’s hand with a grip appropriately like iron. Andrew feared for his finger bones.

      “Same here,” he managed to say.

      “I heard what you said to Bleak,” Raddy told him. “I like what I heard. You have sympathy for horses. That’s good. You going to my boss’s place?”

      “Dead cert,” Mick answered. He started walking again, and the other two men fell in step on either side of him.

      “My pickup’s parked by your Jeep,” Raddy said. He looked up at Andrew shrewdly. “I heard the way you talk about the animals. Some people—” he nodded back toward Bleak’s stable “—they don’t care for the horses. Only the money. Breed ’em for the long legs until the long legs break. And so forth. You are against such things, right?”

      “Right,” Andrew replied with a sideways smile.

      Raddy cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “You know about the Song Lines? The Dreaming Tracks?”

      “Only a little,” said Andrew. “I read a book about it.”

      “Ha! I hear you talk, I suspect you understand. Australia is part of a song the earth sings. Part of the dream the earth dreams.”

      Andrew smiled and nodded. “Yes. So is Kentucky. Where I come from.”

      “Ha!” Raddy exclaimed again. He turned to Mick and pointed at Andrew. “This is a good fellow, yes?”

      “Yes,” Mick agreed. “He is. But tell me, Raddy, how’s your family.”

      “I have a new child. A beautiful boy child. It is odd you ask about my family.”

      “Why?” asked Mick.

      “Because last night, my wife had a feeling that today something special would happen. She made a charm. ‘Someone will need this,’ she said. ‘You’ll know him when you see him,’ she said. Aha!” Again he pointed at Andrew.

      Andrew blinked in surprise. Mick gave Raddy a dubious look. “I can never tell about you. If you believe this stuff or if you’re pulling my leg.”

      “Maybe I’m doing both at once,” said Raddy, flashing a smile. But he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a wooden charm. It was a beautifully carved bird with a beak painted yellow, its body black and white and red. It hung on a necklace of red string.

      “Here,” Raddy said, handing Andrew the charm. “Wear this. It will bring you something important. My wife knows these things.”

      “It’s—wonderful,” murmured Andrew, touched, yet puzzled. “What is it?”

      “Put it on, put it on. It will bring change to your life. Because you know the earth sings songs, it dreams dreams.”

      Andrew put the string with the charm about his neck, feeling odd. Did he have the right to do this? But Raddy only smiled more broadly. He swung the anvil into the back of the truck, opened the door and got in. “I will see you later?”

      Mick nodded. Raddy grinned. “Catch you then!” He backed up, changed gears, and drove off.

      Andrew and Mick got into the Jeep. Andrew looked skeptically at the carved charm hanging from his neck. “What’s it mean?”

      “I don’t know.” He glanced at Andrew. “Do you believe all that rigmarole? Song lines and charms and stuff?”

      Andrew shrugged. “What do you think of it? You understand it better than I do.”

      “I’m never sure. Sometimes I think the Aborigines see things we don’t see. They know things we don’t know. I’d treat that charm with respect, if I were you.”

      Andrew fingered it uneasily, then dropped it inside his blue shirt. Beneath the painted wood, his heart tingled strangely.

      At that same moment in the Northern Territory, in the city of Darwin, Marie Lafayette had finished her day’s classes at the university and fought the unusually heavy traffic.

      She weaved and darted on her secondhand bike, moving with surprising speed for one so small. She was barely five foot two, hardly more than a hundred pounds, and although she was petite, her body was toned and muscular.

      Legs pumping, she headed for the Royal Darwin Hospital where her mother lay in the critical care unit. A heart attack had felled Colette Lafayette, her third—and worst—attack in as many years.

      Although it was February and still “the Wet,” the rainy season, today the sun shone, and the clouds were distant. But Marie knew better than to trust the Northern Territory’s fickle weather. She had a secondhand rain poncho in her secondhand backpack.

      In the hospital parking lot, she chained her bike to a rack, and headed for the main entrance. The building, one of the tallest in Darwin, was a miracle of engineering, designed to withstand the cyclones that were the curse of the city.

      Marie made her way to the elevator, pulling off her helmet and shaking her head. Her hair was thick and golden, and she trimmed it herself into a short, smooth bob. Her eyes were her most arresting feature; they were long-lashed and a pure crystalline light green, unmarked by even a touch of hazel.

      Her high cheekbones, straight little nose and full lips gave her a delicate femininity in spite of her boxy unisex clothes. She wore the university uniform for cookery classes, a white shirt and plain black trousers.

      She got off at the critical care facility. She no longer had to identify herself at the desk. The entire staff recognized her by now. She headed down the hall and quietly opened Colette’s door.

      Colette lay with her eyes closed, and Marie’s heart tightened in alarm. Her mother looked even frailer than she had yesterday. But her eyes immediately fluttered open, as if she sensed that Marie was there.

      “My good girl,” she said in a small voice.

      Marie caught Colette’s hand in her own, as if she could pump some of her own strength and energy into her mother. “Mama,” she said softly and bent to kiss her.

      Colette smiled and stared up at her. “My good girl,” she repeated. “This is a school day. Isn’t it? How were classes?”

      “Good, Mama. And my job at the Scepter’s going well. Last night they told me they wanted to train me for management when I finish this round of certification.”

      Marie worked evenings waiting tables at the restaurant in the Scepter Hotel and Resort, one of Darwin’s finest. The manager considered himself a perfectionist, but he’d said Marie had exceeded even his expectations.

      Now the older woman sighed and smiled. “Ah. You’re so smart, and you work so hard.”

      “Mama, let me bring you something homemade tomorrow. You’re getting too thin. You’re not used to hospital food.”

      Colette grimaced. “I have no appetite. Eating tires me.”

      Marie squeezed her hand more tightly. “Home cooking will make you feel better.”

      Colette shook her head. “What makes me feel best is how well you do. You’ve got an education, opportunity, prospects. That’s what’s important. You’ll have a good future—secure.”

      Marie swallowed. Education, opportunity, prospects, security. These were things her mother had never had. But she’d worked unstintingly for Marie, and now it was Marie’s turn to care for Colette. And she would—she was prepared to drop out of school for a semester, even take a leave of absence from her job if she had to.

      “I’m doing fine, Mama. And you’re going to be fine.”

      Colette’s mood shifted strangely.