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shadow it looked mythical. Elizabeth and Miss Grainger entered through the back door and Elizabeth was shown to her room, just off from the kitchen. “You will sleep in here.” Miss Grainger pointed to a thin mattress on a wooden bed frame with a blanket on the end. “We’ll make some curtains and things and fix this little nook up, and it’ll look much more homey then.”
    Elizabeth didn’t quite know what Miss Grainger was talking about but recognised kindness, somewhere in her soft, chubby flesh and her subtle scent of lilac and flour. Elizabeth’s “Thank you, Miss Grainger” was for the tone in her voice and the tenderness in her eyes.
    Miss Grainger showed Elizabeth the clothes hanging in the closet — two black dresses, two white aprons, two white caps, and a calico nightdress — then left her to settle in.
    Elizabeth had cried so much she did not think she could cry again. She lay on the bed and tried to get comfortable. She looked at the sloping ceiling and thought about everything that had just happened to her. It was only two nights since she listened to old Kooradgie’s stories and looked up at Mea-Mei, her head in her mother’s lap. She closed her eyes and tears slid down her face. She imagined the world as it looked from up in her tree and saw the figure of her baina tending the campfire. She heard her brother calling her name. She saw his face, getting smaller and smaller as she was carried faster and faster, further and further away. Then she saw Euroke’s face again, this time larger. It was still distorted, but with laughter as she tickled him, teasing him that he would be eaten by a big fish.
    My name is Garibooli. Whisper it. Whisper it over and over again.

5
    1918
    T HE INSIDE OF THE HOWARD’S HOUSE on Hill Street fascinated Elizabeth with its polished wood, sparkling glass and gas lights. It offered a thousand curiosities in the shiny silverware and crystal that danced in the light and in the fine china plates that seemed to be the same white colour as Mrs Howard’s skin. The dining room was a mysterious place with heavily embroidered chairs, garland-patterned rugs and a long teak table. Heavy gold-framed pictures of stern men with whiskers and women in stiff, starched garments hung on the wall. Light refracted off every shiny surface. What Elizabeth loved most was the dark wood dining-room table’s centrepiece: its silver vine with silver leaves holding real flowers and candles. When the flickering candles were lit, the glass and gold in the room would radiate and she would be hypnotised, her eyes darting to catch every escaping sparkle.
    Miss Grainger, plump and neat, her golden hair tied back into her cap, ensured that most of Elizabeth’s time in the kitchen was spent usefully and efficiently. Her work was to be that of a kitchen maid, Miss Grainger told her, but she would also do some duties of a house maid, such as sweeping the rugs, washing the linen and the interminable dusting.
    Elizabeth’s day was more than thirteen long hours of hard work from six in the morning until ten at night, with a half hour for dinner and an hour and a half in the afternoon. This was supposed to be free time, but instead Elizabeth seemed to be required to do needlework. There was a hierarchy of servants: Miss Grainger, as the housekeeper, was on the top, Elizabeth was on the bottom. Other girls from the town were employed in the Howard house, but only Elizabeth and Miss Grainger lived there. Elizabeth often found herself on the receiving end of the teasing of the casual staff, to be saved only when Miss Grainger overheard and intervened. Keeping Elizabeth in her place was a privilege jealously maintained by the housekeeper.
    Her first duty of the morning was to clean out the large stove before the cook arrived. She couldn’t tend to the ashes without thinking of the fires of the camps. She would be reminded, as she brushed the hearth