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cassette deck blaring out Bowie or Men At Work. That was until their parents appearedfor breakfast. West Wangallon was much smaller than the main Wangallon homestead where her grandfather lived, which meant privacy was restricted to either the bedrooms or outdoors. Sarah grinned. She’d choose outdoors every time. Cameron yelled again. At this rate, Sarah thought, their mother would wake any minute. Today she was going riding with her brother and Anthony, but if Cameron succeeded in waking their parents they would certainly be delayed. She opened her bedroom door leading out into the hallway, surprised by the sound of her parents’ voices. They were standing together at the end of the hallway where a closed door led to the living areas and kitchen.
    â€˜I don’t care what you think, Ronald. The fact is that Cameron is the eldest. If it’s good enough for your own father …’
    Her parents’ voices carried clearly down the hallway.
    â€˜If he knew the truth …’ Ronald replied with a definite edge to his voice.
    â€˜Well he doesn’t and we both know you’re not going to tell him. The time for that is long past and the consequences for Cameron are too risky.’
    â€˜What about –’
    â€˜You forget,’ Sue said silkily. ‘None of this is Cameron’s fault. Why should he suffer because you’ve suddenly developed a sense of honesty?’
    Sarah shut the door slowly, trying to understand what she had just overheard. None of it made any sense. It sounded as if her parents had kept a secret from either her grandfather or Cameron. She searched her mind for any snippet of information she may have heard in the past. There was nothing, only the certain knowledge that Cameron was the only son recently crowned heir to Wangallon.
    Glancing quickly in her bedroom mirror, she smoothed her hair with her hand before turning the collar up slightly on her cotton shirt. She studied herself again, freed her thick red-gold hair,flipped her head over and fluffed it with her fingers. Retying it she pulled a few wisps of hair free so that they hung delicately around her face. ‘Better,’ she decided. With only a slight pause she rifled through the top drawer of her hardwood dresser and retrieved a small pine box. Inside lay her grandmother’s pearls, the beaten gold bangle and the bright blue scarf Anthony had given her in January. The silk was cool to the touch as she tied it carefully around her neck. She listened at her door and, although hearing nothing, decided not to risk a confrontation with her mother. Grabbing her camera, Sarah slipped through the louvered doors onto the verandah and walked quietly across the floor boards, out the gauze door, and ran around the side of the house.

    Touching the flanks of her horse with the heels of her riding boots, Sarah trotted behind her brother and Anthony, finally catching up to the boys as they walked their horses through the thick lignum. The lignum grew like a hedge on the creek’s edge, extending through the shallow water and out onto the opposite bank, reminding Sarah of a giant woody animal that had sprawled itself across the waterway. Their horses’ hooves sunk into the soft sand of the creek bed as they began to cross it, water swirling only a couple of feet below their feet in the stirrups. Small water birds scuttled away as they reached the opposite bank, a pair of black swans lifting into the air before dropping again to the water’s surface a few metres on.
    â€˜What kept you?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ Sarah answered Cameron, adjusting the camera strap on her shoulder. She longed to blurt out what she had overheard her parents arguing about, however, with Cameron at the very centre of their discussion, it seemed wrong to mention it to him.
    Dismounting, they tethered their horses to a tall gum and walked to the edge of the lignum. The myriad branches of each plant rose from ground level to