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grandpa and grandma and her two aunties, Carrie and Bett. They all cried and laughed, the way they did whenever they spoke about Anna. Ellen talked to her little cousins too—well, she hadn’t talked to Bett’s twins exactly, as they weren’t born yet, but she insisted Bett hold the receiver against her stomach and she’d shouted down the phone to them.
    Six months after that, she and her dad flew to Adelaide and drove up to the Valley to see everyone, and to meet Zachary and Yvette. All her memories rushed back at her again that day too, seeing Lola, the motel, her grandparents. She didn’t want to leave. But Lola took her to their bench and talked to her in that lovely way she did, saying that even if Ellen was on the other side of the world, it didn’t matter because they all thought about each other all the time, many times every day, even sometimes in the night, and all those thought waves shot across the sky. They didn’t even need phone lines or satellites or submarine cables. They were magic, and any time Ellen felt an itch, or she sneezed, or hiccupped, or her eye twitched, it was because at that exact moment, all the way across the seas and the countries, Lola or Bett or Carrie, or all three of them, were thinking about her. Ellen was old enough to know Lola was joking, but still, back home in Hong Kong, it was like a little secret any time she did sneeze or hiccup … Maybe there was some truth in it.
    There was a knock at the door.
    Her father again. “Ellen, Denise is here. With her daughter.”
    All her guilt flew out the window immediately. “I don’t care! Go away!”
    “Ellen, please. I’m sorry. Please.”
    “No!”
    She could imagine how horrified Lola would be if she heard Ellen talking to her father like that, but right now, she didn’t care. It was how she felt. Angry and sad and lonely and everything, all mixed up together. And homesick, a feeling like being homesick, for her mum. And for Lola. And for all her family, there, thousands of kilometers away while she was stuck here, stuck in Hong Kong with her dad being evil and some hideous, horrible witch. Not just a witch, a bitch of a woman out there with her fake smiles and fake nails and everything else fake about her trying to push her way into their lives. Well, it wasn’t going to work. Not if Ellen had anything to do with it. She would never, ever, ever be nice to Denise. She’d already had one mother, the best, kindest mother in the world, and she didn’t need another one.
    She put the pillow over her head to try to block out the sound of her father’s voice. After a minute, he went away. She closed her eyes tight and tried to do what Lola had suggested—fill her head with only good thoughts and good memories. Trying not to cry, trying to ignore the murmur of voices from the living room that she could hear despite the pillow, she did everything she could to think of only good things—Lola, her auntie Bett, the funny twins, Carrie and her noisy, happy family. It didn’t help. It just made her wish even more that she was there with them, having fun, laughing and joking and feeling safe and happy and loved. All the things she didn’t feel now.

Chapter Four
    A T HOME in her renovated farmhouse south of Clare, Carrie was wishing she had never met Matthew, never married him, and definitely never had three children with him.
    “Delia, stop hitting your sister. Freya, turn that TV down, George is asleep. And, Delia, put your toys away please. I’ve asked you five times already.”
    “Four.”
    “What?”
    “Pardon, not what. Four times. You’ve asked me four times, not five.”
    “And I’ll ask you fifty times if I have to. Go. Now. Do it.”
    “Why are you always so cross?”
    “Why are you always so naughty?”
    “We’re kids. Kids get naughty.”
    Carrie did her best not to scream. Where was Matthew? Off at work, allegedly. How convenient that he always had a lot of work to do whenever she happened to mention that