‘That sky could be trouble. We better hustle.’
Quinn Durand climbs into her four- wheel drive and Bronte, panting, springs over to her. Quinn checks her phone. She’s spent too much time at the farmhouse and now curses quietly.
No reception, the network flaky already. She’d checked the storm updates regularly for the first few hours. When did she forget?
She starts the engine and heads to the gates, black poles in the distance. The horizon is an otherworldly purple and rainclouds, woven tightly together, bring forth an early night.
The sun would usually be blazing for another few hours, but it’s being outgunned. At the gates, Quinn turns left to head back to The Pindarry, gripping the steering wheel just like her mother coached her.
‘Both hands on the wheel, love. If you have an accident, it’ll be hours before any help arrives.’ The dirt on either side of the road is orange and beyond it there’s scratchy saltbush squatting in orderly lines as far as the eye can see. The sunlight grows harsher each year and there will come a time when even the tough scrub can’t put up a fight. This prickly field will survive for now, though. By tonight, rain will bounce onto the hard earth like pebbles.
The water is welcome yet it seems this region never gets the balance right. Earlier, radio reports predicted that roads would be swamped and towns cut off. Quinn’s heart beats faster. She was eleven years old during the last flood, and her father was still alive. She remembers racing beneath the rain, giggling and shouting, shadowed by the family’s dogs, their teeth snapping at each other in contagious excitement. Her mother had laughed, spinning with her arms out like a movie star. Quinn had never seen a wider smile on her face. ‘Think of the rainwater tanks!’ her mother cried.
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