Wish Upon a Tree

By Naomi Schulz

Blair Jones a teacher in Brisbane tragically discovers that her parents passed in a freak car accident the same day she got a transfer for Tara, her hometown. She must pick up the pieces and care for her younger sister, Lydia and fears she will never have a normal life. They decide to sell and move out to Tara, leaving Blair to discover a descendant’s diary while hiding many other secrets of her abusive ex-boyfriend from Lydia.
From the diary she learns that they have a family heirloom that was apparently stolen gold from the Gold Rush in 1857, where her ex-boyfriend and her family’s past last connected. While she is frightened for her life and her sisters, she meets an attractive assistant veterinarian, Nick and his mother who are their new neighbours.
Blair must strive to find where the gold was hidden from the family riddle passed from generation to generation to save her family. When she is faced with death will she understand the final resting point of their family heirloom?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728394664

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

2018, Brisbane

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It was another school day for Blair Jones. Standing in front of the class made her feel jubilant. After all, who wouldn’t be? She was a second-year teacher at Brisbane State High School, teaching her specialty, mathematics.

What came with the job was exam block. There was only one way to describe it: stress week. Many students would come and cry to Blair about life being tough and unimaginable. Yes, she knew what life was like, and what these teenagers were going through would just be the tip of the iceberg in their lives. She couldn’t agree more that getting top marks in school wouldn’t always get them far or help them achieve their dreams.

Hell, she wanted to be a history teacher, but her talent had always been mathematical equations. She was always the problem solver in the family, assisting her father, Graham, on the farm by solving out hectares to number of cattle and solving financial issues facing his newly inherited jewellery store.

Her father loved the farm with every part of his body, and like him, his father had been the same; however, family ties in the city ended that cycle. Farming was still in her blood, and moving in her late teenage years was extremely tough. Her grandfather kept reminding her before he passed that this would make her stronger, and like he always said, a snake cannot bite through your boots. Others referred to it as being as tough as boots, but she liked how he twisted things—sometimes even the truth.

She missed home more than anything in the world, and all she could think about was getting her transfer to Tara Shire State College and moving away from the Brisbane city beehive to a life in the country. After eight years, home was in her grasp. She could almost taste it.

The end of first term was almost over. All she had to do was mark these final papers that her students would be finishing in a few minutes. As the clock ticked its final minutes, she told her students to get ready as time was almost up. That made some put their heads on their desks and sigh, while others frantically wagged their pens up and down the lined paper.

‘Pens down,’ Blair announced and saw pens thrown down and heads facing her, waiting for their next instruction. She loved teaching, even if her parents didn’t always agree with her motives. They wanted her to be the co-owner of her dad’s jewellery store, but she wanted to inspire young minds. She wanted to be more than a sales assistant.

All Blair ever wanted was to encourage teenagers to do what their hearts desired instead of filling in the gaps of society by being checkout chicks and pizza delivery boys. There is so much more to life than working at a career that you don’t love.

An unusual knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. As she looked up, there was her boss, the principal of the school, looking at her in a way that expressed, I need to talk to you.

She responded by giving a slight nod before returning to her class. She heard his boots thud back down the hallway until they disappeared into his office.

Just when she was about to continue, the bell rang to signal the end of the day. She announced for them to leave after they had written their names on the front. She was left alone to collect all the papers she needed to mark that weekend.

After she packed, she left her classroom tidy and headed towards her boss’s door. Could this mean that my transfer for Tara Shire State College in the Darling Downs has been approved?

Crossing her fingers, Blair tapped on the door twice and walked into the principal’s office. It feels like old times. She was not always the best student at times, until she realised that school was important.

Every time she entered an office, she felt the weight on her shoulders, and memories clouded her mind. Her face twisted just as her stomach began to churn. There were no butterflies of excitement.

Thump, thump. Can’t my heart give me a chance to breathe first? Thump, thump. Now it’s going to leap out on the table in front of my boss and chase him until he stops staring at me with his beady eyes. I must act normal so he cannot tell how nervous I am in his presence. She cleared her throat—and her imagination.

The principal was a man of very few words. He gestured for her to sit in the chair opposite him and looked at her with a stern facial expression. Carefully, she sat in the chair and placed her handbag and exam papers on the lime-green carpet that made her feel sick to her stomach. How could someone like this colour? It reminds me of puke.

Mr Brink was the kindest man she had met in her teaching career, but he also had a strong outer shell that scared the students and her. As she approached the chair to sit, she realised his face was not as scary as she had thought. Rather, it was sad or confused.

‘I don’t know how to tell you this.’ He paused a short while before he cleared his throat. Blair was obviously not the only one who was nervous.

‘There are two things that I must tell you.’ Mr Brink paused again. ‘First, you have gotten your transfer approved.’

Blair nodded along, unable to hide her smile, which was waiting to break through as soon as she heard the news. I finally got it! I can go home. She was about to bounce around with glee when it dawned on her: What the second thing could be?

‘What is the second thing you must tell me, Mr Brink?’ She looked at him, confused. Blair was so tense with suspense she thought she might fall off her chair any second.

Mr Brink cleared his throat before continuing. ‘The police contacted me trying to get through to you as your mobile was turned off for the exam. They told me to tell you to meet them at Brisbane Private Hospital.’

Thump, thump. Hospital? Who? What? Blair’s heart started to beat faster, and her head became dizzy as tears flooded her eyes. She was certain she was going to collapse off the chair this time.

Mr Brink hurried over to her and retrieved her before the chair came crashing to the floor. She leaned against him for support as her body heaved in his arms. Sobs escaped from deep within her and exploded his office with noise. He comforted her by patting her back and handing her tissues as she felt the weight of death drag her heart to the floor. She had to hold it in and keep herself professional as there were a hundred things to do on her list now.

Pulling away from her, he talked through his own tears. ‘Today is Friday, and the report card marks are to be in by Monday, but I want you to take the whole of next week off. I understand that you have an awful lot of work to do with moving, and now …’

‘Yes, I think that is what I need to do. There is so much I have to do. I need to be there for my parents and my sister Lydia too. I have to mark those final exams and pack.’ Her voice quivered, becoming a whisper.

Blair grabbed her things and ran to the door. She whispered her apologies and dashed to her car. She might have seemed rude to him, but he would understand. Wouldn’t he? Blair slammed the door, pulling her knees up to her head as she sat in the backseat of her Triton Ute. Her body went numb with fear and confusion.

Her hands were trembling as she tried to wipe the tears from her reddened cheeks. She gasped for air as she cried out in pain. Her heart was ripped from her chest and thrown out the window, and she was left with the mess to clean up.

She drove and ran into the emergency waiting room at the hospital, then walked up to the clerk behind the counter.

‘Whom are you looking for, my love?’ she questioned.

‘Graham and Sophia Jones,’ Blair responded with panic in her voice.

‘Sorry, we have no patients under that name,’ she replied in a mellow tone.

‘Listen, the police tried to ring me if that helps.’

‘Yes, let me take you to them.’

They strolled down many corridors. After the fifth turn, she lost her way as her head thumped heavily. Two police officers were standing in front of a closed door and asked for her name. One was taller than the other, but Blair knew they were brothers due to their nametags.

‘Blair Jones,’ she confirmed, pulling out her driver’s license. She swallowed hard as the clerk disappeared back to her desk.

‘Miss Jones, we have an officer with your sister at home. She has already been informed and insisted to go home. Your parents were in a freak car accident, and they died at the scene. Please follow me.’ The taller police officer opened the closed door to a more private location.

She couldn’t comprehend the news she was given. They can’t be gone just like that. You saw it on television all the time, but when it was a part of your life story it became real. Too real.

All those memories I was going to have in the future, gone. Vanished into thin air, like I was a piece of clothing in a washing machine. I keep on tumbling, and I have never stopped. As soon as I think my life will go back to normal, it just skips that step and I am left to pick up the pieces, again and again. Why is my life different from everyone else’s? Nothing ever goes as I plan. But if this is what’s planned for me, I have to accept it and move on so I can live a normal life. No grandparents, no parents, no aunties or uncles, no cousins even. The only family I have left is my younger sister, Lydia.

Blair’s life was turned on its head, and she had to continue to be brave and have the courage of a lion to its pack. She was now that lion for her sister.

She sat on an aluminium chair across from the officer and rested her hands on the cold table. He showed her some images of the accident site and of their car, which had crashed next to a side rail. It was hard to picture the vehicle as ever being whole, seeing it in its current state.

After ten minutes sorting out her feelings, Blair was seated at the wheel heading home. She pondered her parents’ last moments before the crash. She knew that they would have died with blissful hearts, as they were going on a weekend vacation to celebrate their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. They didn’t deserve to die. It made her think that life was short and love was powerful.

Blair met the officer by her house and sent him home after thanking him for his service to her family that dreadful day. She made her way up the pebbled path to the front door, dreading the sight of Lydia collapsed on the couch with a box of tissues engulfing her. Lydia looked up when she heard Blair come closer, and she pushed herself up and into her sister’s warm embrace. When they drew back a little and looked into each other’s eyes, they shared the instant sisterly connection of knowing exactly what each other were thinking.

With a block of chocolate and a bag of plain potato chips later they were tucked under their parents’ bed covers, trying to sleep in each other’s arms. Lydia eventually did with Blair stroking her flaming red hair.

Watching the news that night tortured her. Seeing their family car squashed between a van and a rail made a chill run up her spine and numbness overcome her body. Tragedy or murder. She dreaded the thought of the police coming to their dead parents’ house to ask questions about their lives and to gather if there was a motive behind this mystery man in the van.

Blair closed her eyes and meditated, removing her thoughts and turning her mind to memories of when she and Lydia were little. They always played with each other’s hair until Lydia got the scissors out. Then Sophia, their mother, nearly fainted. What would have happened if Mum hadn’t stopped Lydia from cutting my hair? She laughed inside her head.

She loved the family portrait hanging in their parents’ room. You could clearly see a resemblance between Sophia and Lydia. Their eyes were green like a forest, standing out just as their hair did. Blair was a mirror image of her father, Graham—curly, sandy hair that was longer than her father’s, coming to about her shoulders, and bright sapphire eyes.

Blair curled up and drifted off, dreaming about that summer day of the portrait. They went to the beach after the photo was taken and ate ice cream that was half-melted onto the pavement. The Queensland heat beamed down, and a day at the beach was always the best way to cool off. It beat swimming in the dam on the farm. Things couldn’t get any worse than when a seagull pooped on their father’s white shirt and then they saw it stealing hot chips from other beachgoers. She began to giggle in her sleep and was left with a smile on her face. That was one thing she wasn’t going to forget.

CHAPTER 2

2018, Brisbane

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It was 6 a.m. on Saturday morning when Blair finished her marking and completed the remaining report cards. That is one thing crossed off my long list. She still needed to talk to a solicitor about her parents’ will, including the property and the Jazz Jewels store. Plan the funeral, find a house to move into, sell her parents’ house, pack, move, and unpack to continue with life. Blair planned it so that everything would be done within the next week and a half.

She knew that she had to talk to Lydia about some things involving her parents’ funeral, but she was afraid—afraid of admitting this actually happened. It was hard to accept the truth, and the truth about life was that everyone was going to die at some point, but hey, no one said it was going to be easy before you were rotting away in a casket under the ground.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s another of Grandfather’s sayings that I fondly remember. It does make you feel tested and trialled to make the right decisions in life. How do we know we are making the right ones when it comes to the welfare of more than yourself? The truth is we don’t. We just do it.

Blair desperately needed to move, more now than ever before. She anticipated starting her life again, moving on. That meant that her sister had to give up everything she had too. Guilt overcame Blair, and her mind became so foggy that she couldn’t bear to hide in her office any longer. It was time to face the music.

On her way to the kitchen, Blair wondered why she hadn’t gone sooner to Tara. Her parents were the only ones holding her back. What were they hiding as they never wanted her to go back home? Yes, there had been the incident just before they left, regarding no rain, no money, and a broken heart. She couldn’t bear to lose her mind again, not now and never again.

Stay strong, pull yourself together, girl.

Tears flooded her eyes when she imagined the pain of leaving her beloved parents behind when she was going to be five hours away. Technically, I am not leaving them, because deep down, they will always be with me, every step of the way. Moving was going to be another unbearable thing to do. I must do it! I have to try to make life better for Lydia. She deserves it. She needs this as much as I do.

She patted her eyes dry with a tissue she had stuffed into her sweatpants and inhaled. Exhaling, she paced into the kitchen area and plopped her butt down on a chair opposite Lydia at the dining table. It was time to tell her.

‘We are moving to Tara. I know that this is going to be hard for both of us, but it is the right thing to do. I am at a peak with my career, and I am sure there will be opportunities for you. I know that you have to give up a lot, like your friends, and quit your job.’ Blair took a breath and watched as her sister took in this information, which she knew was coming.

‘I just want you to know you’re not alone. I have to give up my life for this too. I never said this was going to be easy. We just have to take life as it comes, like when we moved here in the first place.’ Blair reached out her hand to cup Lydia’s.

A nod from Lydia meant they were moving back to Tara. She could see that