Dark Innocence

By Christine Gardner

On a hot summer evening a group of bored teens decide to have a séance; it's the sixties and they're country kids just having a bit of fun. Everyone knows it's just nonsense, don't they? If someone is hurt, someone they don't like, it can't be anything to do with them, can it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christine Gardner
• Release date: Sep 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386874287

Christine Gardner

Christine has had a fascination for history most of her life. When the youngest of her five sons started school Christine went back to school as well. After several years at TAFE, studying both visual arts and writing, she went to university and eventually graduated with a BA in History/Philosophy of Religion, with Honours. She's written all kinds of books since then, most with at least some history included.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

L et’s go down to Apex , Linda said, for the third time, and we all looked at each other and shrugged, wondering if we could really be bothered. It was hovering around 100 degrees outside and not much better inside, the little fan oscillating on the kitchen bench gamely trying to create a breeze for the four of us. We had no air-conditioning in the sixties, not in country towns in Australia. Well, maybe some of the fat cats did; I wouldn’t know. I did have one or two—not friends exactly—acquaintances, more like, whose houses always seemed cool. Mum said it was just because they always kept the curtains and blinds closed so their expensive furnishings wouldn’t fade. Mum liked everything open; we needed lots of fresh air, she always said, no matter what the weather was.

Lance stood up, his gangly teenage body towering over us all. Let’s do it. He’s my cousin and a couple of years older than me, so he always thought he knew everything. Linda thought that too; she was a bit soppy about him which I thought really gross. He was okay but certainly no prize; he always had pimples and his feet stank whenever he wore shoes. Apart from the pimples he wasn’t bad looking but I still saw him as the brat who chased my sister and me with spiders and farted at the dinner table, even though all that was years ago. He was staying at our place for the summer because his mum and dad had just split up and my mum had offered him a place to stay till Auntie May got over it a bit. She’s Mum’s sister.  Anyway he was a bit of a nuisance but sometimes it was handy having a boy around; Mum and Dad were more willing to let us go and do our own thing if Lance was with us. Even Linda’s parents liked the idea—of course they had no inkling of how their darling daughter felt about him. If they only knew, he wasn’t at all safe around her! If she had her way, and she probably would, she’d be sneaking into his room the next time she slept over.

Mandy’s my little sister. She’s taller than me and looks older but she’s actually ten months younger. She’s okay most of the time. I’m Cyn, short for Cynthia, which I hate. I know Cyn sounds like sin but it’s better than Cynthia, which sounds posh and I’m obviously not that! Maybe I’ll change it one day. I rather like Marigold or Samantha—then I could be Sammy; that’s cool.

I sighed again and got up. Mum and Dad were out shopping and I left a note on the kitchen table, under the little vase that always sat there, with the pink plastic roses I’d given Mum for Mother’s Day when I was ten. I’d told her she should chuck them out but I was kind of pleased she refused.

We all wore shorts and it was hot enough not to bother with towels if we did manage a ride to the river. It was school holidays and there’d be plenty of tourists around. I could never figure out why they came here, where there was absolutely nothing to do, but come they did, every school holiday. The park where we were headed would be full of caravans and the river beach would be full of burnt tourists—always good for a laugh.

Our street was dead quiet. No