The Brush That Paints in Shadows

"A small town’s silence is never empty—it’s just waiting for the right ear to listen." — Jasmine Dallow

As dark storm clouds massed low on the horizon like bruises spreading across the sky, the final class of the day had unravelled into barely contained chaos. Something primal seemed to ripple through the air — a charge, an unease. Most of the students, animated and restless, blamed it on the so-called rain effect. In Broken Hill, rain was a rarity, a wild and dramatic event that unsettled the very atmosphere. When it came, it didn’t drizzle. It descended with fury — sheets of water, rolling thunder, and lightning that forked across the heavens like ancient runes. The promise of it alone was enough to send the town’s youth into a collective stir.

But Miss Schofield, unmoved by such superstitions, had dismissed the theory with a pointed glare and a sharp tap of her pen on the desk. The tall, sharp-nosed English teacher, known for her exacting standards and uncompromising manner, had declared the class “borderline feral” and promptly held them back for ten extra minutes — punishment by quiet discipline. The room had simmered in tense silence, students exchanging glances while the storm teased them just beyond the windows, the sky darkening with slow inevitability.

By the time Violet finally made her way across the school grounds, the place felt eerily deserted. The usual after-school hubbub had evaporated. No clatter of lockers. No clumps of students dragging their feet or loitering in the shade. The air was heavy with moisture and thick with silence, broken only by the distant grumble of thunder rolling across the plains. Dust swirled at her feet, stirred by the rising breeze.

Jasmine stood alone by the back gate, arms folded, her foot tapping an impatient rhythm on the cracked, ochre-stained earth. Her ponytail whipped gently in the breeze, and her brows drew together as she caught sight of her sister approaching.

“There you are!” she called, half exasperated, half relieved. “What happened to you?”

Violet let out a weary sigh and raked a hand through her windswept hair, still carrying the tension of Miss Schofield’s final glare. “Detention,” she muttered grimly. “Miss Schofield.”

Jasmine winced, the name alone enough to explain everything. “Let me guess — talking during silent work time?”

“Something like that.” Violet shrugged, then allowed a faint grin. “Apparently, my imagination is ‘disruptive to the learning environment’.”

Jasmine chuckled, her irritation fading. “Classic you.”

They exchanged a knowing glance — sisters forged in the same fires but shaped by different winds. Above them, the clouds continued to gather, thick and low, as if the sky itself were listening.

As they began their slow walk home, the first few fat drops of rain spattered the dusty pavement, leaving small, dark circles on the sun-baked ground. The air felt close — thick with storm tension — and Violet found herself squinting at the shifting light, that strange yellow-grey glow the sky sometimes took on just before a proper downpour.

Her eyes swept over the near-empty schoolyard, scanning instinctively for familiar shapes. The long shadows of the classroom blocks stretched like fingers across the ground. A bin lid clattered in the wind, and the flagpole ropes pinged faintly against the metal shaft — sounds oddly amplified in the hush that had fallen over the school.

“Have you seen Michelle?” Violet asked, her voice low, almost cautious. There was a tightness in her chest she hadn’t noticed before — a quiet worry she couldn’t quite name.

Jasmine glanced sideways, her brow creased as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah,” she said slowly, “her mum picked her up. Drove right up to the front. It was weird — Michelle didn’t even say goodbye.”

That stopped Violet mid-step. Michelle’s mum hardly ever came. She worked odd hours at the chemist on Oxide Street and usually relied on Michelle to walk home or catch a lift with Mandy when needed. Something about it felt... off. But maybe she was just projecting. Her nerves had been strung tight all day, stretched thinner with every echo of Emily Sullivan’s letters in her head.

“Oh,” Violet murmured, continuing to walk, though her gaze lingered behind them for a moment longer. She felt a vague flicker of guilt. Michelle was one of her closest friends — loyal, quick-witted, always ready to throw in a sarcastic remark or lighten the mood. But this afternoon... Violet didn’t want cheer or chatter. Her thoughts were a tangle of old stories, newspaper headlines, and a dark curiosity that couldn’t be soothed with jokes.

Still, she was relieved — and felt guilty for that relief in equal measure.

“Everything okay?” Jasmine asked gently, reading her expression the way only a sister could.

“Yeah,” Violet said too quickly. “Just tired, I think.”

But even as she said it, the name Sally Harlow surfaced again in her mind, whispering like wind across the plains. And trailing close behind was the memory of Emily’s trembling script, those last words scratched onto paper like a warning.

The air around them crackled faintly, not with lightning — not yet — but with something unseen. Something brewing. Violet couldn’t name it. But she could feel it.

The first clap of thunder rolled across the plains like distant artillery, low and long, shaking the breath from the earth itself. Violet felt the vibration before she truly heard it — a guttural sound that seemed to rise from beneath the soles of her shoes and settle somewhere deep in her chest.

The air had grown heavy, thick enough to taste. That unmistakable scent of petrichor — the Outback’s dusty promise of rain — clung to every breath, mingling with the tang of hot bitumen and the faint perfume of eucalyptus carried on the wind. Overhead, the sky churned with a bruised palette of charcoal and steel, clouds swollen and restless, ready to burst.

Violet glanced upwards, her brow creased. The clouds looked close — too close. A sheet of wind swept through the street, warm and impatient, tugging at hems and loose hair. Shop awnings flapped noisily in protest. “Come on,” she said quickly, tugging Jasmine’s arm. “We’re not going to beat it at this pace.”

Jasmine didn’t argue. The urgency in Violet’s voice had a sharpened edge, and the younger girl could sense the shift in mood — the way the storm seemed to carry more than just water. They picked up their pace, shoes scuffing against the grit-dusted pavement as they turned onto Argent Street, Broken Hill’s main thoroughfare.

The town had come alive in that way it always did before a rainstorm — frantic, electric, fleetingly communal. Shopkeepers hurried to wheel in chalkboards and racks of postcards, a few cursing the wind as it scattered papers or slammed doors shut. The butcher on the corner yanked down his awning with a grunt, and the florist two doors down hastily dragged buckets of wilting gerberas inside, the water already sloshing from the brims.

The usually lazy hum of the afternoon had turned urgent. There was a pulse to the town now, a strange rhythm of boots on concrete, of laughter and warnings tossed between strangers, of car doors slamming and dogs barking nervously in backyards nearby.

Violet held Jasmine’s hand tightly, weaving through the crowd. Her heart thudded, not just with exertion, but with something else — that gnawing sense that the storm wasn’t the only thing gathering. Every echo of thunder felt like a herald. Every gust of wind seemed to carry voices just beyond the edge of hearing.

And somewhere in her mind, always, the image of Sally Harlow lingered like a shadow — lost beneath skies like these, swallowed by the land when no one was watching.

As the first fat drops splattered against the pavement with audible smacks, Violet instinctively tightened her grip on Jasmine’s hand and broke into a jog. The distant rumbles of thunder had deepened into a guttural roar, swelling like an ancient beast awakened. A sudden gust of wind tore down the street, flinging grit into their faces and sending a discarded crisp packet cartwheeling past.

"Vi, slow down!" Jasmine called out between gasps, her voice thin against the rising wind. Her school bag slapped against her back with each hurried step, and her small trainers slipped slightly on the slickening path.

But Violet barely heard her. Her focus had narrowed to survival — not in any dramatic sense, but in the practical urgency of not catching cold, not ruining books, not turning the afternoon into a miserable trudge. Her heart beat hard in her chest, though whether from exertion or some deeper, unspoken anxiety, she couldn’t quite tell. For a few precious minutes, the mysteries that had plagued her — Sally Harlow, Emily Sullivan, Silverton — were shoved aside by more immediate concerns: rain, shelter, Jasmine.

And then the sky gave in.

The heavens opened in earnest, releasing a sheet of rain so heavy and abrupt it seemed as though a dam had broken above them. Water poured from the clouds in torrents, not drops. The dusty roads turned instantly to mud, and the smell of the town changed — no longer dry and warm, but metallic and earthy, as if the ground itself had been unsealed.

Within seconds, their uniforms were soaked through. Violet’s shirt clung to her spine, and her hair stuck in wet ropes to her face and neck. Jasmine’s plaits were unravelling, dark and glossy with rain, and her breath came in short, sharp bursts as she struggled to keep pace.

Around them, the streets had erupted into a mess of movement and noise — umbrellas blown inside out, newspapers melting into mush against pavements, shopfronts slammed shut with hurried hands. A man dashed across the street clutching a brown paper bag to his chest like a sacred relic, and a woman cursed loudly as her hat was whisked from her head by the wind.

"There!" Violet shouted, her voice cutting through the storm like a flare. She jabbed a finger towards the entrance of the arcade — a squat brick building that curved inward from the street, lit from within by flickering yellow lights. It looked like sanctuary.

Without waiting for a reply, she pulled Jasmine harder, both of them half-running now, feet slapping through puddles that had formed alarmingly quickly. Their shoes squelched with each step, and muddy water splashed up their legs, staining white socks and bare skin alike.

The storm, almost vindictive in its intensity, surged one last time as they approached the arcade — a final soaking salvo as if to punish them for daring to escape its grasp. Rain stung Violet’s cheeks like thrown pebbles, and she blinked hard against the water streaming into her eyes.

Finally, they reached the entrance of the arcade, lungs burning, drenched to the bone. Violet doubled over slightly as she tried to catch her breath, wiping rain from her brow with the back of her hand. Around them, the chaos of the downpour was muffled by the sudden stillness inside the arcade a kind of liminal refuge between the ferocity of the storm and the artificial calm of fluorescent lights and piped-in music.

Panting, she barely noticed the figure emerging from the shadows of the entrance until it was too late.

She collided with him — hard. A startled grunt escaped her lips as the impact jolted through her. A handful of objects slipped from the man’s arms and scattered across the slick tiles: a crumpled pack of cigarettes, a rolled magazine, a brown paper bag that gave off the faintest rattle, as though something metallic lay hidden within.

“Oh! I’m so sorry,” Violet said at once, her voice breathy with exertion, coloured by genuine apology.

She looked up to meet his face, and something in her stomach knotted.

The man’s features were striking — not handsome, exactly, but stark and defined. Deeply tanned skin stretched over prominent cheekbones, and dark stubble traced a rough jawline. But it was his eyes that made her pause: a pale, icy blue so sharp and penetrating they seemed almost out of place in his otherwise sun-worn face. He stared at her for a fraction too long, his gaze unreadable — not angry, not startled. Just... observing. Calculating.

“It’s fine,” he muttered, voice gravelly and low, tinged with an accent she couldn’t quite place. He tugged the brim of his cap lower, a shadow falling over his eyes, and crouched stiffly to retrieve his belongings.

Violet gave a polite, apologetic nod, but her instincts were already tugging at her. She reached out, grabbed Jasmine’s damp hand, and ushered her forward without another word.

The further they stepped into the arcade, the brighter and more surreal the world became. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, casting a sterile glow across rows of shopfronts and dusty vending machines. The hum of electricity mingled with the soft murmuring of other townsfolk who’d taken shelter. Their wet shoes squeaked and squelched against the tiled floor, leaving a trail of water behind them like snails retreating from the storm.

Violet blinked against the droplets clinging to her lashes. Her heart was still thudding too fast, not just from the run. The encounter had unsettled her — not because the man had been rude or aggressive, but because something about him didn’t quite add up. The too-quiet apology. The deliberate way he’d shielded his face. The silence behind his eyes.

She dared a glance back.

The man was still kneeling, though his hands were now full again. His shoulders hunched slightly, his body angled away — but his face, hidden beneath the low-drawn cap, turned ever so slightly in her direction. Watching. Or perhaps only waiting. The moment passed quickly. He stood, slipped something small into his coat pocket, and vanished into the rain.

Violet turned back and forced herself to breathe. The man could have been anyone — a local, a traveller, just another soul caught in the storm. But her instincts prickled with a quiet, insistent alarm. Something about him — something subtle, hidden behind his eyes — left her deeply unsettled.

Jasmine tugged at Violet’s hand, her small fingers insistent, grounding. The simple gesture snapped Violet out of her thoughts, her eyes reluctantly tearing away from the spot where the man had stood moments earlier.

“Vi, let’s find a place to dry off,” Jasmine urged, her voice raised slightly to compete with the rhythmic drumming of rain on the corrugated iron roof above. The sound was oddly comforting — a deep, steady percussion that seemed to press in from all sides.

Violet nodded silently, swallowing the uneasy tangle of thoughts that still clung to her like damp clothes. Together, they ventured further into the arcade, shoes squelching, their damp footprints fading behind them on the patterned tiles.

The arcade was an odd little ecosystem — part shelter, part social hub — common in towns like Broken Hill. Though modest in size, it was well-loved and worn-in, the kind of place where everyone knew everyone, and a good gossip could travel from one end to the other in less than ten minutes.

They wove between glass-fronted shops with hand-painted signage and faded sale stickers curling at the edges. Behind the glass, mannequins in out-of-season frocks posed stiffly, and shelves offered up dusty knick-knacks and sun-faded paperback novels. The tang of eucalyptus polish lingered faintly in the air, mingling with something far more enticing — the rich, oily aroma of hot chips frying in bubbling vats of tallow.

From the small café nestled at the far end, the scent of brewed coffee drifted like a siren’s call. A battered radio perched on the counter played quietly, the music tinny and crackling with static from the storm, as locals huddled at round tables with paper cups and dripping umbrellas.

The arcade was livelier than usual — not bustling exactly, but pulsing with the low hum of bodies displaced by the weather. Young mums with prams, pensioners with walking sticks, shop assistants leaning on counters with idle curiosity — all momentarily trapped in this strange little cocoon while the world outside roared with elemental fury.

Jasmine gave a small bounce on the balls of her feet, her soaked fringe sticking to her forehead. “Can we sit at the café?” she asked hopefully. “I’m freezing.”

Violet offered a weak smile, though her mind was still elsewhere. “Yeah, alright,” she replied, voice softer than usual. “Let’s warm up a bit.”

They veered toward the café, where the fogged windows glowed warmly against the grey palette of the afternoon. Inside, the scent of hot oil, steaming coffee, and a faint note of vinegar wrapped around them like a blanket, comforting in its familiarity. The fryers hissed with activity behind the counter, their sound almost musical against the steady percussion of rain on the tin roof above.

As they entered the seating area — a scatter of colourful plastic chairs and laminate-topped tables, each etched faintly with the wear of countless elbows, crayons, and spilled milkshakes — Violet’s eyes scanned the room. A small figure near the far corner caught her attention.

Mandy.

She sat hunched over something in her hands, elbows on the table, her hair pulled back into a messy bun, a lone chip slowly cooling on a napkin beside her untouched drink. There was an intensity to her posture — the kind Violet recognised immediately. It wasn’t the slouch of boredom. It was the curve of focus.

Relief bloomed in Violet’s chest, unexpected but welcome. After the unsettling encounter outside and the chaos of the storm, the sight of her friend brought a quiet sense of anchoring. Familiar. Safe.

“Mandy!” Violet called out, raising a hand in greeting.

Mandy looked up sharply. Her expression, momentarily startled, softened into a broad grin. “Vi! Jas!” she called back, motioning them over. “What a coincidence!”

Jasmine beamed and darted forward ahead of her sister, her damp shoes squeaking comically across the linoleum. Violet followed more slowly, still tugging at the edges of her sleeve to wring out the water. They both sank into chairs opposite Mandy, sighing in unison as they settled.

Outside, the storm raged on. But within the café, it felt like another world — insulated and humming with the soft buzz of conversation and clinking crockery. The rain on the roof provided a constant percussion, like the pulse of the Outback itself.

“What are you doing here?” Violet asked, tilting her head curiously as she brushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek. Mandy wasn’t usually one for cafés after school — she preferred the quiet of her room, surrounded by paper, charcoal, and her ever-growing stack of secondhand art books.

But Mandy didn’t answer the question directly. Instead, her eyes lit up as she lifted a thick, well-worn hardcover book from the table, the faded dust jacket partially torn at the edges. She turned it so Violet and Jasmine could see.

“Look at this,” she breathed, her voice nearly reverent. “Found it in the school library — tucked behind some old encyclopaedias near the back wall. It’s full of paintings and sculptures, stuff I’ve never seen before. I reckon it’s been sitting there for decades, forgotten.”

She flipped the book open, revealing a vivid oil painting — a haunting landscape of ochre hills and lone gum trees beneath a molten sky. The brushwork was bold, almost feverish, and something in the composition made Violet’s chest tighten.

A smile ghosted across Violet’s lips, faint but genuine. “Of course you’d find treasure where no one else thinks to look.”

Mandy shrugged, her eyes dancing. “Art speaks to me. It’s like... there’s something ancient buried in the brushstrokes, you know? A feeling, a truth — just waiting to be noticed.”

Jasmine leaned in, squinting at a sculpture depicted on the opposite page — a sinuous shape carved from ironwood. “That one looks kind of spooky,” she murmured.

Mandy grinned. “Exactly! Some of them are eerie, yeah. But that’s what I love. It’s not just about beauty. Art’s where secrets live.”

Violet looked at her friend — this girl who always seemed to see beyond the obvious — and for a moment, she forgot about the man with the dark eyes, the storm outside, and the strange weight pressing on her thoughts since history class.

Because Mandy was right.

Sometimes secrets didn’t shout.

Sometimes, they waited in brushstrokes and shadows, silent and patient.

As the rain drummed steadily against the tin roof above and rivulets streamed down the fogged café windows, the three girls huddled closer around the small table, their breaths misting in the humid air between them. Outside, the storm showed no sign of relenting, its heavy rhythm like a backdrop to some unfolding drama. Inside, however, a different storm was quietly brewing.

Jasmine leaned in towards Mandy, her elbows resting on the laminated table, still damp from their soaked sleeves. Her eyes glinted with that particular sparkle of curiosity unique to the very young — part innocence, part eager mischief.

“Mandy,” she whispered conspiratorially, “have you come across any hidden gems in that book of yours?”

Mandy looked up sharply, as though snapped from a trance. A flush rose on her cheeks — not the self-conscious kind from being caught off guard, but the kind that came from holding a secret too long.

“Well… actually…” Her voice dropped to an almost inaudible murmur, her fingers nervously smoothing the page in front of her. Her gaze darted across the café, scanning the other tables for listening ears, then back to her friends. She leaned in even closer, drawing them with her into a cocoon of whispered secrecy.

“There was something tucked between the pages. A note,” she said softly, her eyes wide now. “Old. Folded three times. I nearly missed it. It’s written in ink, but kind of faded — like it's been there for ages. I don’t think anyone’s touched it in years.”

Violet’s heart gave a small, inexplicable flutter. She straightened, her earlier weariness forgotten in an instant.

“A note?” she echoed, her voice catching slightly. “What sort of note? What does it say?”

Mandy hesitated, chewing the inside of her cheek as though the words themselves might bite. Then, after a quick glance over her shoulder, she whispered slowly and clearly — as if repeating a spell:

“‘The truth lies within the art. Seek the brush that paints in shadows.’”

For a long, stretched moment, there was only the sound of the storm outside and the faint hiss of the café fryer.

Violet felt the words settle deep in her chest, each syllable curling around the edges of her thoughts like smoke. A prickle ran along her spine — not fear exactly, but something quieter, more primal. Recognition, maybe. Or warning.

Jasmine blinked. “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know,” Mandy admitted, her voice no louder than a breath. “But I think it’s a clue. Maybe to a hidden meaning in the paintings. Or something someone wanted kept secret.”

Violet sat back slightly, her mind already spiralling into possibilities — of old artists with coded messages, of long-lost truths buried beneath layers of paint, of Emily Sullivan’s eerie letters and Sally Harlow’s vanishing act. A trail, perhaps. One that was beginning to reveal itself, piece by piece.

And now, they had a clue.

Cryptic. Haunting. And irresistibly tempting.

Outside, the rain drummed its steady rhythm against the iron roof, a low percussion that had become almost meditative—until a sudden cackle of laughter sliced through the air. It rang sharp and unexpected, like the crack of a whip in a chapel, jolting Violet from her spiralling thoughts. She turned instinctively, scanning the arcade for the source.

The laughter had already faded, absorbed by the echoing acoustics of the space, but her gaze caught on a nearby table where a small cluster of middle-aged women sat, leaning in conspiratorially over chipped teacups and half-eaten lamingtons. Their voices, though hushed, carried with that peculiar quality that comes from both confidence and habit—the cadence of well-practised gossip.

Curiosity piqued, Violet angled slightly in her seat, trying not to look obvious. In Broken Hill, secrets rarely stayed buried for long—especially not when certain women seemed to make it their sacred duty to exhume them.

Mandy, seated opposite, suddenly straightened. Her spine stiffened, and her expression flickered with unease. “Oh no,” she murmured under her breath. Violet followed her line of sight.

Mandy’s mother was striding purposefully toward them, rain-slicked hair tucked beneath a knitted beret, her expression tight with something unspoken. She looked like a woman who had heard too much and not enough all at once.

“Mandy, dear, I need to talk to you,” she called, her tone clipped but carrying that peculiar weight only a mother’s voice could deliver—a mix of concern, authority, and something else Violet couldn’t quite place.

Mandy flushed crimson. Her eyes darted apologetically to Violet. “I’ll tell you more later,” she whispered quickly, her voice strained, caught between frustration and anticipation. Then she rose, hesitating only a moment before stepping away from the table.

But before her mother could reach her, another woman intercepted her. She grabbed Mandy’s mum by the forearm, firmly enough to halt her steps. Their conversation unfolded in low, urgent tones just metres away, but the wind and the rain drummed too loudly on the roof for Violet to make out the words. Still, the tension was palpable—the way the older woman leaned in too close, the flash of something sharp in Mandy’s mother’s eyes.

Meanwhile, Mandy, standing midway between the table and the women, faltered. Her momentary escape revoked, she slinked back into her seat beside Violet with a barely audible sigh.

“Well?” Violet asked under her breath, eyebrows raised.

Mandy didn’t answer. Her eyes fixed instead on the nearby group of gossiping women. One of them, a sharp-faced woman with pencilled-in eyebrows and a long, curling braid down her back, turned her head and met Violet’s gaze with unsettling directness. A slow smirk tugged at the corners of her thin lips. She leaned closer to her companions, voice low but not low enough.

“You know,” the woman said, the words crisp and deliberate, “I heard from a very reliable source that some families in this town are falling apart. Secrets behind closed doors. Affairs. Lies.” She took a deliberate sip from her cup, savouring the impact of her insinuation like it was strong tea with too much sugar.

Her companions gasped and leaned in, eager for more. Their eyes flitted about the arcade like hawks watching for a faltering rabbit.

Violet strained to hear the rest, but a sudden crack of thunder overhead stole the words from the air, and the renewed roar of the rain on the roof drowned out the rest of the exchange. All she could see were mouths moving, eyes widening, and heads tilting in shared, delicious scandal.

Beside her, Mandy was silent, her eyes shadowed. Violet could feel the weight of unspoken words pressing against the space between them. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t just idle town gossip. It was something more. Something personal.

And, like everything else lately, it felt like one more thread in the strange, tangled tapestry pulling tighter around her.

Just then, Mandy's mother turned abruptly, her gaze locking with Violet’s for the briefest of moments. It wasn’t an accusatory look, nor one of idle curiosity—it was something far more intimate and unsettling. A flicker of emotion passed over the older woman’s face, too quick to name but heavy enough to linger: concern, yes—but laced with something else. Sadness. Fear, even.

The chill that raced down Violet’s spine was as sudden as it was unwelcome. The expression—fragile and fleeting—was unlike anything she had seen from Mandy’s mother before. It wasn’t the usual tight-lipped disapproval or harried maternal stress. It was as if, in that one brief second, the woman was trying to warn her of something… or perhaps apologise for something yet to come.

“Mandy, we need to go. Now,” she called out, her voice firmer this time, edged with urgency that brooked no argument.

Mandy didn’t protest. She gave Violet a look that was both apologetic and oddly resigned, before hurriedly shoving the art book into her backpack. The weight of whatever secret she carried seemed to press down on her shoulders as she turned and followed her mother without another word.

Violet watched them go, her mind ticking over with questions she couldn’t quite articulate. Her curiosity, already simmering, now surged into something sharper—needling at the edges of her thoughts with a quiet insistence.

A movement beside her drew her attention. Jasmine was watching too, but with a strange sort of calm, as though none of it surprised her. She didn’t speak right away—just crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair, her expression unreadable.

Then, with the same breezy finality of someone commenting on the weather, she said, “Everyone has secrets, Violet.”

Violet turned to her, blinking. “You sound like Gran,” she muttered, half joking, half unnerved.

Jasmine merely shrugged, her small face thoughtful. “Maybe Gran’s right.”

There was something in the way she said it—so casual, yet underlined with a knowing weight—that caught Violet off guard. It didn’t sound like a child parroting something she'd overheard. It sounded… lived-in.

Violet narrowed her eyes. “And what’s yours, then?” she asked, feigning lightness, though her interest was genuine. A coy smile tugged at her lips. “If we’re all holding secrets, surely even little sisters aren’t immune.”

Jasmine scoffed, shaking her head with theatrical vigour. “I don’t have any,” she said quickly, too quickly. Her tone was flat and firm, but something in her eyes—a quick dart away, a subtle shift in posture—betrayed the truth.

Violet raised her brows. “Right,” she drawled, folding her arms and arching an eyebrow in mock disbelief. “Everyone has secrets, Jas. Remember?”

Jasmine didn’t reply. She only huffed and looked away, fiddling with the sleeve of her damp school jumper.

Violet’s attention drifted back towards the retreating figures of Mandy and her mother, then over to the table of gossiping women, now deep in their second pot of tea and still spinning half-truths into headlines. She watched them with fresh eyes, wondering not just what they knew—but what they chose to keep to themselves.

This town, Violet thought, may have been carved from red dust and weathered stone, but its people… its people were built from things far more difficult to see.

But secrets didn’t stay buried forever. Not here.