“Gods, it’s dusty in there,” Kylara said once they were outside. She blinked hard, adjusting to the bright light. They really needed to clean up the place one day.

The Nest was a two-story building with a wide verandah that stretched around the entire building. The place had once been an inn, run by the Garland family for generations. The last Garland had passed a few years ago now, and no new owner had taken her place, but it was still used frequently. People often went there for gatherings, to talk and chat, especially when it was hot outside. It was also used for general storage and as a guest house for travellers.

Admittedly, the place had seen better days. They had kept it up for a while, but now the white paint was peeling off, exposing the weatherboard. The front garden was unattended, and most of the chairs had been taken off the verandah for other uses. What had once been a forest scene bolted to the door had mostly fallen off, leaving an awkward gap in the pattern.

Maybe I’ll fix it up one day, Kylara thought. I could run an inn. I think I’d like that.

She walked to the railing and used her nail to pick off some peeling paint. It chipped easily. Absentmindedly, she flicked it away. She watched as a small piece of white sailed away and disappeared from sight.

Either way, someone should fix the place up. The rundown building did not exactly match with the rest of Kookaburra Creek.

Kookaburra Creek was an attractive town. It wasn’t particular large or rich but it was well loved. It showed. Almost all of the buildings were well taken care of.

The Nest faced Muler’s Square, a small court surrounded by about a dozen houses. The houses were small and near identical, each with a sun porch and a garden. But they were all cared for and each had its own colour and character.

Kylara slid her arm over the railing, tracing its edge. Then she spun and turned to her sister. “But really,” she said to Yalmay, “you think he has it?”

“What?” Yalmay asked. “Oh, do you mean Billy?”

“Yeah, I’m not not over-reacting, right?” Kylara said. She smiled. “It’s a bit worrying, a six year old running around with a huge spear?”

“No, it’s very worrying,” Yalmay said. She looked back at the flywire door. “You know, I really thought he’d be here, listening in. He loves stories. It’s weird he’d miss one. He’ll be upset about it.”

“It is weird,” Kylara agreed. She leaned back on the railing and crossed her arms. “Although the magman will probably be here for a few days. He can listen to the next one.”

“I know, I know.”

Something about Yalmay’s tone seemed off, and Kylara frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Yalmay said. “At least, not yet. I’ll tell him once I find him. It’s just that I have no idea where else to look.” She slumped. “I’ve basically been everywhere.”

“Have you looked at Marley’s?” Kylara asked. “He likes going there.”

“Of course.”

“Skull rock?”

“Yep.”

“Er…” Where else would a six year old go? She dredged her memory for places. “Footcross field? The church? The lake?” she asked.

“He’s six, Kylara. He hates church.”

Kylara swallowed. “Right.”

“And anyway, I’ve already looked, he’s not there. The lake is a good idea but,” Yalmay sighed. “I need to bring him back before dinner. Wanna help?”

“Not really,” Kylara said. “I’ve got a few things to do tonight. Uncle Don wants me to help with a few chores. Good luck though. I–”

A chill went up her arm. She slowly turned around, her eyes wide.

Something wasn’t right.

She looked towards town, hoping to place the feeling.

It was the early evening in Kookaburra Creek, and the town was just starting to emerge from the summer heat. People darted between the lengthening shade of the square, bringing the news and gossip of the day to others. Old women played Gist as they wove carry baskets. A group of young men huddled together under a rosewood tree by the shops.

Everything looked perfectly charming.

But still.

“Something’s wrong,” she said out loud.

It was a horrible feeling, akin to tripping–that moment just after loosing your footing when everything stood still. It felt like the world was plummeting from a great height.

It just hadn’t impacted yet.

“What do you mean, ‘something’s wrong’?” Yalmay asked.

Kylara didn’t face her. “Where else have you looked for Billy?” she said.

“I just told you,” Yalmay said, “basically everywhere.”

She hasn’t noticed it, Kylara thought. She didn’t turn to face her stepsister. That horrible feeling… how can anyone not notice it?

“Like,” Yalmay was saying, “the lake can be next, but that’s like the last place I can think of. I’ve already looked at the all other the usual spots. He wasn’t at the house either. And I’ve checked Tommen’s and Manny’s and I asked Senza to keep an eye out. Not sure where else he’d be.”

“I think,” Kylara said slowly, “we should find him. Right now.”

“That’s what I was getting at…” Yalmay said, then frowned. “Wait, we? Are you gonna help?”

“Yes,” Kylara strode down the stairs and onto the street. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she figured she’d know it when she saw it. Her eyes scanned the square, trying to take in every detail.

“So are you coming to the lake with me?” Yalmay asked. “Because we’re not going in the right direction.”

Where would Billy be? Yalmay was right, there weren’t many places to check. Kookaburra Creek was small, and the sphere of places a six year old could end up was even smaller. She didn’t know where to look that Yalmay hadn’t already been to. Unless of course…

“What type of spear was it?” Kylara asked. “The one Billy stole?”

“Um. A hunting one? Why?”

“Joontah’s, right?”

“Yeah.”

Kylara gestured for Yalmay to be quiet.

“What are you doing?”

Kylara stared at her then walked away briskly. The horrible chill had lessened, but not gone away entirely. She could still feel it lingering on the tips of her fingers.

“Wait,” Yalmay said, catching up to Kylara. She was a bit out of breath. “Are you going to try to find him with warding? You can still do that?”

Kylara tightened her lips. “I lost the ability to empower wards, Yalmay. Not the ability to construct them.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Yalmay said. “You never say. Ever since the incident, you’ve been so closed off. You can talk to me, you know.”

“It means,” Kylara said, only half paying attention to her words, “it means, should still be able to do this.” She spun around. At Yalmay’s blank look, she clarified, “Find him, I mean. It’s the same as inside, with the magsman,” she nodded in the direction of the Nest, “with the trigger ward. Same exact thing, just larger scale.” She looked at Yalmay, who was still giving her a blank look. “No? Oh–never mind.”

She had used a trigger ward to figure out what type of leather the magsman was wearing, and while this would require some modifications, it was the same general concept. Trigger wards, or constructs, as they were more widely known, weren’t proper wards. You couldn’t make them ward against anything. But you could key them to a specific material and they ‘triggered’ when they detected it.

Trigger wards were fairly useless, unable to actually interact with the world except for information gathering, and even that was limited to specific cases. But they were the only wards Kylara could still do.

Left working with the scraps of the power, she thought bitterly.

Still, she was so sick of everyone underestimating her. She wasn’t going to let one of her few chances pass her by.

“The spear, what type of wood was it?” Kylara said. “Joontah has two–the she-oak and the jarrah.” Another blank look. “Was it brown with little ray-flecks in it, or sort of reddish?”

“Brown.” So the she-oak then.

She had hoped for that. Joontah had bought the spear from a travelling tinker a few months ago, a specific kind of wood unique to the area. It was the perfect candidate for locating with warding.

“Alright,” Kylara said. She took a deep breathe and closed her eyes. Then, she reached out to that hidden world overlaid upon her own. It was a subtle shift, barely noticeable, but something changed. When she opened them again, her vision shimmered with imagined points, formed as if condensing from mist. They stretched as far as the eye could see. Kylara knew intuitively where they ended, where they began, and the distances between every one of them.

This was the Sight.

“Won’t it be better to just look for him?” Yalmay asked. “I mean, Billy might not even have the spear with him.”

That was true. Even if she did locate the spear, there was no guarantee that Billy would be with it. In fact, it was probably more likely than not. Six year olds didn’t have the attention span to hold onto things for long.

“I know,” Kylara said. “Still, it feels like something I need to do. I’m not sure why.” She could see that Yalmay was staring at her oddly, and Kylara shifted a bit on her feet.

“You know what Kya?” Yalmay said after a moment. “It’s fine. I can find him myself. No worries. I’ve got it.” For a second, Kylara thought she saw that awful look of pity creep back in her sister’s eyes.

No.

She would not be pitied. Whatever this was–if it was anything, she would deal with it in a rational matter. Back straight, face expressionless, situation under control. She could handle this. “I said I’d help,” Kylara said. That was a promise.

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“Yeah but–won’t this take like, a while? Going to the lake myself might just be quicker.”

“I said I’d help,” she repeated.

“Oh,” Yalmay sounded almost surprised, “Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I guess you did say that.”

Kylara gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”

“I can’t believe you actually mean that,” Yalmay sighed. “Fine. Let’s go to the lake. Even though I’m pretty sure it’s nothing.”

Why was Yalmay so determined to go to the lake?

“No. Just… give me a few minutes. I’ve got this.”

“It’s, well,” Yalmay said, “it’s just you look a bit, er…” she paused, as if looking for the right word.

“Alarmed?” Kylara hazarded. She certainly felt it, although hopefully it wasn’t showing on her face. Yalmay was sensitive to that kind of thing. That feeling had really shaken her up.

“Stressed,” Yalmay concluded. “You look stressed.”

“What?” Kylara scoffed. She wasn’t stressed. She didn’t get stressed. Afraid, sometimes, sure. But never stressed.

“And I know you think you need to prove yourself after you lost–”

“It’s not that, Yalmay,” Kylara interrupted. She bit her lip to try to conceal her annoyance. It wasn’t that, not this time. “I just… have this really bad feeling. Like something horrible is about to happen. I want to find Billy. It’ll be quick.”

“Okay.” Yalmay nodded. “Okay. A few minutes.” She looked nervous, and Kylara wished she had been more discreet. True, she was worried herself, but she didn’t have a reason why other than a bad feeling. There was no need to bring her sister into it as well.

“A few minutes,” Kylara said. The new warding equations she’d been working on would hopefully keep this quick.

Kylara focused and writing appeared in her mind’s eye. Most of it was old equations, half done scribbles, notes and reminders. They didn’t look like anything in particular, and if asked to describe them, she would be at a bit of a loss. The words and numbers were nowhere near tangible. But they were still real, and they were the stuff wards were made of. She willed some markings to fade, then watched as a new warding equation wrote itself to her will.

It was a fairly complex spell–not one she had known a few months ago. Before, she would have used simple radial wards. This was much better. It was specifically designed for searching.

She set the construct in place and the outline of an intricate ward appeared, stretching far into the north.

It detected nothing.

She wrote another one, a very similar equation but rotated ninety degrees anticlockwise.

Then two more after that.

Nothing.

She then narrowed the variation and cast again, combing through space with a finer thread.

Still nothing. Huh. Kylara frowned.

She tried a few more times using different techniques and different intervals. Perhaps she had miscalculated somewhere. Radial wards. Sheet wards. Bow-string wards. Choral wards. Her vision cluttered with writing. Nothing worked.

“Can’t find it?” Yalmay asked.

Kylara shook her head in disbelief. “It’s not here,” she said.

“Well, thanks for looking. Lake?”

“No,” Kylara said, “I mean, its not here. Not at all. There’s no she-oak wood of its kind anywhere nearby. At least for several kilometres.”

“Maybe its not she-oak?”

Kylara raised an eyebrow. “It is. I know this stuff well.” She did. Half the job of being a warder was just being able to name and recognise the right materials. You needed to be specific for wards, often to absurd levels.

Give me time, Kylara thought, and I can probably name the exact composition of every spear in Kookaburra Creek. She had spent hours memorising the stuff. She doubted she was wrong.

“Maybe… he’s not with the spear? He left it somewhere? Or maybe it was the other kind, the jarrah.”

“It would still show up,” Kylara muttered. She couldn’t check for jarrah wood as easily, as it grew natively to the area and any live trees would mess up the trigger, but she had cast a trigger ward through Joontah’s house just to be sure. It hit, so as far as she knew, it was still resting safely in his room. Luckily, his house was not built of jarrah wood.

The bad feeling came back, although now it rested in the pit of her stomach. It felt like her own this time. She looked east, towards the horizon.

Yalmay followed her gaze. “Are you saying–” she started.

“There’s three possibilities,” Kylara said, swallowing. “Assuming I’m not mistaken. One–someone burnt the spear. Completely pulverised it, to the point where it isn’t even wood anymore and it wouldn’t trigger the ward. Two–someone ran it all the way to Saltsbury, where my wards won’t reach. Or three–it’s in the Desert.”

Yalmay shook her head. “He wouldn’t. We’ve taught him better than that.”

“He’s six, Yalmay, and you said he’s upset at you. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“You really think–”

“No. But I think we should at least check. I have a bad feeling.”

Kylara looked out into the distance. The River Parer ran nearby. She couldn’t see the water from here, but you could still tell where it was. It was wear the trees changed. The dark olive of the forest contrasted sharply with the light green of the weeping willows along the water. It made the river look like a green scar across the land.

A scar across the land… funny, you knew the river was there in the same way you knew the Desert was there.

“This bad feeling you have,” Yalmay said slowly, “is it the same one you get… there?” she whispered the last part, as though she didn’t want to mention the Desert by name. Yalmay had always been one for superstition, and the Desert was the biggest source of myth.

The Desert was always present. Even now, when you couldn’t see it, you could still feel it, twisting the everyday slightly out of shape. It was in the way people spoke. It was in the way people moved. No one looked too long towards the east, as if there was some dark cloud looming on the horizon.

Nobody really knew how the Deserts got there, or what they meant. They were just there.

Sometimes people went in, but never made it very far. They said Kylara’s great uncle had wandered over the rocks once as a child. His mother had screamed and shouted at him to come back, but she had been unwilling to cross the boundary herself to retrieve him. Eventually he had panicked and ran back. He had not talked for weeks afterward, and when finally he did, it wasn’t in a language anyone could understand. He had to relearn Koulan from scratch.

As an adult, he’d been violent with his wife. No one could know for sure, but there were whispers that something had come loose in his head that fateful day. That something had snapped. Kylara had heard the story a dozen times as a child. The lesson learnt: the Desert was not to be taken lightly.

Yalmay seemed to be thinking the same. “Oh gods. You really think something happened to him, don’t you?” She started pacing. “This is all my fault, if I hadn’t yelled at him last night when me and Joontah were sneaking out, he wouldn’t have run away. I was angry he kept getting in the way,” she stopped pacing. “I should’ve let Joontah deal with it, Billy’s his brother and he’s better at that stuff anyway. How am I gonna tell his mum I lost him? She already hates me. Oh, this is all my fault.”

Fuck. Kylara closed her eyes. She should have said nothing. She should’ve investigated by herself, then reported back if anything was wrong. Instead, she had made a big drama out of it, and Yalmay of all people was feeling guilty. And for what? What evidence were they even going on here?

“Yalmay, this is just a precaution,” Kylara said, hoping her voice sounded more reassuring than she felt. Going by the way her sister’s eyes latched onto hers, it did.

Good, Kylara thought. You have her attention, now take charge.

“We’re going to look for him, that’s all. You said you were going to the lake. Go.” Kylara pointed. “Check the Parer while you are there. I’ll go to the border.”

Leave the Desert to me. I can handle it better.

She put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Alright?” Yalmay nodded. “Good. I’ll see you at dinner.” She gave Yalmay a short hug, then pulled back. “Everything will be fine?” she asked.

“Everything will be fine.” Yalmay smiled and made a dismissive gesture with her hand, but Kylara could tell she was shaken. Her voice quivered a bit.

Kylara gave her a quick smile and then turned away. Yalmay and her were closer than most siblings, despite the fact that there was, technically, no blood relation between them. It helped that they had started as friends first.

They had met as children, when Yalmay had just been a shy girl from Saltsbury whose family had briefly fallen on hard times. Kylara had been an outsider of her own, although for more… unique reasons. They’d bonded over it.

Kylara suddenly stopped, just before the forest edge. She turned around. She wanted to watch Yalmay leave. It wasn’t necessary–Yalmay was older than Kylara by a little over three years. She could take care of herself. But the age gap had always felt like less, and Kylara was fiercely protective of her.

Once her sister was out of sight, she sighed and headed to the creek.

Kylara had been spending a lot of time at the creek since the incident. It was a good place. Despite being near the Desert, the water always seemed so happy, with the banks cupping the babbling brook like a child. It made her feel calm. Appreciated. Sometimes, with her ear close to the water and her eyes closed, Kylara could imagine the water laughing, the little bubbles making fun of her for getting her cheek wet. It reminded her of better days.

“Billy!” she shouted as she walked. “Billy!”

The creek was close, and it only took her a few minutes to get there. By the time Kookaburra Creek had faded behind the trees, she had arrived. “Billy!” she called again. There wasn’t much underbrush, which gave her fairly good visibility. If Billy was close, she would see him.

Kylara walked closer to the water, absentmindedly grabbing a stick and swinging it between the trees to break up a dense cluster of spider webs. They were easy to see, most had several moths trapped in them.

The stream closely traced the eastern boundary with the Desert, before looping around Footcross Field and joining with the River Parer. It was a small stream, barely two metres across at its widest point, but erosion had created a little gorge dividing the banks, making it look more prominent. It was deep, too. You could sometimes find crayfish there, although it wasn’t the right time of year for them.

Kylara looked back towards Kookaburra Creek again, and could just make out the outline of the Dugald’s house. That meant that she was nearly at the Desert. Kookaburra Creek was located just out of sight of the border.

She doubted it had been built that way as a coincidence. People didn’t like looking at the Desert. Personally, Kylara didn’t see the fuss. The Desert could be unsettling, true, but the privacy was worth it.

“Billy!” she shouted. “It’s almost time for dinner!”

Where was that kid?

She grabbed another stick off the ground, planted it as leverage, and swung herself over the small slope down to the water. She jumped across, then climbed up the other side. Standing up, Kylara rubbed her hands on her thighs, wiping off some dirt.

The far bank felt different than the near one. It wasn’t wrapped up in the same nostalgic memories as the near one. When Kylara had been younger, her father had told her the far bank was the Desert, with the stream neatly splitting the land in the middle. She had wanted to protest that it wasn’t–she had been a warder by that time and knew better–but you didn’t ask silly questions of Jerong Kunyjiri. You listened to him. Quietly.

She hadn’t dared touch the water until she was thirteen.

In reality, once the stream crossed into Kookaburra Creek, it didn’t get closer than twenty metres to the boundary. It was just a convenient landmark where there wasn’t one. You couldn’t always tell what was Desert and what wasn’t just by looking at it.

Even now, Kylara could only tell from the dire warnings scrawled on the trees and the sharp end to her Sight where the boundary began.

She walked to the group of stones that sat directly on the boundary and quickly climbed up the rocks and peered out. The rocks were the same on either side. The trees, too–mostly oak and river red gum, although there were a few across the border that were too tall, or two twisted.

Nothing. No Billy. Thank the gods.

She climbed down, praying she wouldn’t be asked about this later. It was incredibly taboo, to look into the Desert, and for a good reason.

Where to now?

There were six other rock outcroppings along the border, which all gave good views into the Desert. Kylara had always considered the stones something akin to official entrances, although of course there was no such thing. The Desert had no need for a doorway.

There were two options. She could walk next to the border or she could continue along the creek. After some deliberation, she headed back to the creek. She would trace its path north until the next stone outcropping, about a fourth a kilometre away, then look out again. It was better than walking next to the Desert. This way, she wouldn’t need to worry about accidentally stepping over the boundary (although she would never be so careless as to do that). Plus, she wouldn’t get a headache from looking at it too much.

She continued like that for a while, until at the fifth stone outcropping something caught her eye. A glimmer of blue, in the corner of her vision.

She walked towards it. Then stopped.

The creek was shallow here, and littered with stones. On those stones lay a graveyard of moths. Hundreds, no thousands, of them lay on the rocks. Some were common, species she saw everyday in her granddad’s garden. Others she had seen only in pictures.

They were beautiful. The blue and purple ones were on the far bank, the brown and yellow ones on the near one. There were several green-blotched moths, a few bogongs, a granny’s cloak, several mallees, and dozens of other species Kylara couldn’t name. They were in more colours that Kylara had ever seen. The blue ones gradually transitioned into white, then shifted again into cream, gold, and orange species. Some of them were nearly stacked on top of each other, hind wing to forewing. Others were isolated from the rest. None were in the water.

Carefully, Kylara bent down, picked up one, and examined it. It hadn’t lost its colour–a mix of blue and black framed with a vivid red band. It wasn’t a species she was familiar with. She turned it over. Its wings were perfectly intact. It wasn’t even damp, despite being only a nail’s length above the water. It couldn’t have been there for long.

This was… what was this? Where had they all come from? Who had put them here? And how? There was so many of them.

She picked up another, examining it. Then another. How had they died? They weren’t crushed, or drowned, and they couldn’t have starved. It looked like they had all decided to lay down and die.

“Billy!” Kylara shouted, a little louder than before. “Billy, if you’re hiding somewhere, go back home. Please.”

Again, no response. She waited a moment then slowly put the moth she had been holding back down. She put it down gently, carefully, and exactly where it had come from. She didn’t want anyone to know she had disturbed it. The moth fit perfectly into the pattern, like the piece of a puzzle.

No, not a puzzle, she thought numbly, a display.

“Billy!” she shouted again, then immediately thought better of it.

The pattern was too perfect. Not a single moth was out of place. Despite being made on uneven rocks on a stream, the lines were sharp and neat. The colour gradient was flawless. The symmetry–perfect. It almost looked flat, as if the original artist had simply willed the ground below to become a smoother canvas.

But more than that, it felt... wrong.

She stood up. If this was someone’s twisted idea of art, why? And more importantly, who was it intended for?

Her eyes flickered briefly to the Desert, then to Kookaburra Creek. She started running.