Letter To Someone...

I dream that he still sits perched... perched high in the hollow of that eucalyptus tree. The magnificent creature that held all my secrets. A beauty he was – called a Powerful Owl. Native to Australia - I think, and he had a calling...

He was the only one who saw what happened that night.

Oh, I have dreamed he would turn into a parrot and speak- and share all he had heard and seen. Would he always remain my only witness, my only eyes to freedom, where my only hope lay? Did he know what he saw?

He had been the one constant visitor we had had after moving to the farm property in far North Queensland. He was in that tree – night after night, watching all - from the hollow, as our uninvited guest that we loved to glance at from inside our new farm walls. I had been searching for a secluded place to do my writing. City life had eaten me up with weariness and I was ready to find a quiet corner in the world to finish my latest book, without distraction from the noise and hurry. Here it was, our large, peaceful safe haven in the outback. Barry- my Hubby of 13 years was happy to take his Gardening business out into the world where everyone needing help had acres of land at their doorstep! We had only been here a month; it did not feel like home yet. We had not made friends and Bazz hadn’t yet started up his business, we took a long-deserved break before swinging into a new season of life. This house was enormous, I could not see cars entering the property from one end to the other - I loved it.... there was space, space of my own- nothing like what I had experienced all my years in Sydney. All I had accomplished since moving was- I had started to write. My latest novel was about a woman trying to escape the hands of abuse, it was just a different direction than what I had done before and I was seeing it splashed all over the news lately, the statistics, the horrors... some woman even got to a point of suicide or just-as-painful- hurting others to escape their own horrors. I just knew many people would relate to me writing about such a topic – when so many are going through this hell. Who could have ever known, as I wrote- that my story was more convincing than I could have ever imagined and that the very same writing would be brought up in a Court of Law, helping accuse me of a crime that would land me with over 20 years imprisonment to life!

Forward to today...

Sitting in my cell, still mourning the loss of who I said goodbye to that night. The last time I saw my Bazz, never to be held again or hear his laugh or be annoyed by his teasing. The night my Hubby's sister Kelly and her children were coming to visit for the first time. It was their first trip to The Big Aus since we’d been married. We had both only met our nieces and nephew over FaceTime and phone calls. Finally- we were going to be able to embrace those smiley faces that loved to throw us a mouthful of cheek from the other side of the world. I’m sure they were just a chip off the old block, their dad - Dave, scoundrel as he is, was still posted and after 2 cancelled Aus trips in the last 5 years, Kelly decided it was time to visit her family abroad with or without him, see our new home and finally spend time with her big brother. Their poor children had never met their grandmother, let alone their uncle and aunt...

Honestly, I do not know if an image like that ever leaves your mind. It haunts me every day, every night, reminding me that I never met those children face to face, not how I'd hoped, not how I'd expected...

I still try and conjure up an image of me hugging them all and welcoming them into our home, so they would know they were wanted here. I have had no contact with Kelly's husband since being behind bars and he has had no contact with me. My elderly Mum has not written once. I learned she had moved house and just like many of the older generation here - only has a landline. So, I do not have an address or even a phone number to share with her my side of this story, the story I do not know all the answers to. This is lonely, more than I feel I can handle most days. If it were not for the rough company that gave me a slight acceptance in this woman's prison, I would have gone insane. They say it’s not what you know, but who you know- and once I was out of my trial cell I was placed in with Margaret- my saving grace, if there is any such a thing in these enclosed walls. No one questions her authority after the stories of defence I have heard in her honour, but I know the reason I am imprisoned is why many stay away from me also, I am not liked in general, but I am under the protective wing of Marg. Thank God!

Letter to someone...

So, I am playing with my conscience right now, pretending that someone in the figment of my imagination would actually read this letter and possibly listen to my side of the story! About the night I emerged from hours in my writing room, the other end of our large castle-like, farm property. In a bit of a daze from hours of screens and writing- I waltzed through the house only to find what I thought was a redwood stick in the middle of our living room. I picked it up and realized it was a large butcher knife – covered in blood! I gasped... To this day I am not sure if I ran through the house or a slow motion of myself floated through my house unaware of the horror that would unfold around me. Kelly and the kids were to arrive hours earlier and I had still heard no noise entering the house. We were hours from the next property and the drive from the airport pick up was out in the middle of Woop Woop - so I wasn't concerned about the late arrival. I was just coming out to grab a coffee until the visitors poured into our home, but before I reached the kitchen that day, knife in hand... I saw a 7-year-old, grabbing at the heal of his sister, both lying in a sea of blood... I am not sure how long I stood there and how long a grip of horror embraced my whole being ...seeing what I was seeing – in my kitchen! I knew those faces, I'd only met them over a screen, but this was not the smiley faces I had hoped to encounter. A gasp of horror or a scream? I'm not sure what sound left my body- only the owl perched outside in his hollow from the giant tree that overlooked the whole living area of this enormous property could answer that question. I instinctively embraced those little bodies, only to realize there was no breath. A sudden realization hit me- where's Barry? Where's Kelly? The next moments are all quite blurry as I jumped up and kept moving toward the far door of the entrance to find Barrys car parked a good 50 meters from its usual spot. What the heck? I started to walk towards the car, then run... As I got closer, I could see heads in that car, slumped back as though they were having a nap. But as I approached the car, inside was my Hubby, his sister and my 12-year-old niece – all with no breath in their bodies, covered in a sea of red, I had been holding the weapon that had done this to them all! A thick red dust covered Kelly’s long blond curls. I later learned the dust indicated the bodies had been in that position for hours before I called the police, as the windows were opened and only a slight breeze touched the surface that afternoon. I had seen nothing, heard nothing. But now... I was numb. I think I was on my knees, I really can't tell you much more detail about that moment apart from the sounds I remember, a very loud presence of cicadas emerged over the nights stillness, if the owl was hooting, no one would have heard, it was as though the cicadas screamed into the night sky a deafening noise that blanketed how I felt. Nothing was missing from our house that day, Barry- likely had a wad of cash in his wallet knowing Kelly and the kids were coming to visit (and if he did- it was now gone) he used credit cards for nothing! But standing here, covered in blood from embracing the kids, only my prints on the knife that took them all & an inability to ring the police for hours after the incident (cause I had no idea what had happened!) And no one but a Powerful Owl perched in the crevice of our large Gum Tree that oversaw everything that happened that evening and every evening since moving in. Oh, if he could only talk! But my eyewitness is a quiet creature of the night, hidden in the solitude of his own crevice, only an observer of the world of others he gazes into each night. My only witness. The only one who knows my hands are innocent and my heart and life were destroyed that night, not by my own doing. While I sat writing my story and not knowing what was happening on the other side of our property when the lives of my loved ones were taken. If anyone is reading this... I don’t know if you believe my side of the story, but thanks for reading it anyway.

Oh – and Mr Owl... you suck.