The Truth in the Cupboard

“Maybe ghosts aren’t scary. Maybe they’re just the only ones who don’t lie when it’s dark.”

I was dreaming about jellyfish. Not scary ones. The glowing kind that drift about like party balloons underwater. We were swimming in a giant fish tank with them — me, Mack, and Ribbons the Rabbit. They didn't sting or anything. They just pulsed around us with long floaty arms, like streamers in the wind. It felt quiet and warm and floaty and nice. The jellyfish glowed blue and purple, turning the water into something magic, like swimming through the night sky. In my dream, I could breathe underwater, and my hair floated around my head like seaweed.

Then came the creak.

It wasn't part of the dream. It was too sharp, too real — a high, bendy squeak like an old door being naughty in the middle of the night. It tugged me out of the fish tank and back into the sewing room, where the doona was twisted around my knees and my cheek was warm from pressing into Mack's shoulder. My jellyfish vanished like soap bubbles popping.

I blinked. The dark was different now. Not thick and safe like before, but thinner, like something had come in through the edges. My ears turned on before my brain did, and I heard it again — that soft groan of the front door, followed by a thud-thud of footsteps on the floorboards.

For a second I thought maybe it was Grandpa. Sometimes he gets up in the night to chase away possums that dance on the shed roof. He always says, “Little beggars think they own the place,” and waves his torch around like a lightsabre. But this didn't sound like Grandpa. The steps were too quick, too sharp. Not the slow, careful shuffle of slippers on floorboards, but the determined click of hard-soled shoes. And then I heard the voice.

Not loud. Not shouting. But cutting through the dark like scissors through wrapping paper.

“I swear to God, Mum, I'm losing my mind—”

I froze.

That voice. That was—

The door to the sewing room wasn't fully closed, and a faint stripe of hallway light reached across the carpet like a golden finger. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, heart giving a strange thump. My brain felt fizzy, like lemonade in a cup. The nighttime chill had settled into the room, making the tip of my nose cold, but the rest of me was warm under the blankets.

“Mum?” I breathed, almost smiling.

Before I could wriggle out from under the doona, a hand came out of the dark and grabbed my arm.

I gasped, but it was just Mack.

He didn't say anything right away. Just held my arm tight, and when I looked at him, I could just about make out the serious line of his mouth in the dim light. His face was a pale smudge against the darkness, but I could feel the tension in his fingers.

“Don't move,” he whispered. His breath was warm against my ear, smelling faintly of the toothpaste we'd both used before bed – the minty kind that Grandma buys that isn't as sweet as the one we have at home.

“But it's Mum—”

“I know. Just… wait.”

His voice wasn't angry, but it wasn't playful either. It had that tight, grown-up edge he sometimes gets when he's pretending to be a secret agent or if I've fallen and scraped my knee and he's trying not to freak out. The sort of voice that makes your stomach do a tiny flip because it means something important is happening.

We both stayed still. The fold-out bed creaked slightly beneath us, but not loud enough to be heard over the voices from the kitchen. Through the thin walls of Grandma and Grandpa's house, everything carried – whispers, sighs, even the soft clink of spoons against teacups.

The voices were coming from the kitchen now. Mum's was sharper than usual — not shouting, but slicing. Like when she's on the phone with someone she doesn't like and she talks in that fake-nice way that's somehow worse than shouting. The kind of voice that makes you want to tiptoe even if you've done nothing wrong.

“She just turned up,” Mum was saying. “Didn't even call. And Paul—”

There was a clink, like someone putting a mug down too hard. I imagined the sound rippling out through the kitchen, making the cutlery drawer rattle just a little.

“Paul left, Mum. Just walked out—early evening, didn’t say a word. No explanation. Nothing!”

Her words hung in the air like ice crystals. I felt Mack's hand tighten on my arm, his fingertips pressing little dents into my skin.

Grandma's voice came next, soft and low. “You don't know that yet, love. He might—”

“No, Mum.” Mum's voice cracked like a snapped stick. “He left. I caught him climbing out the bloody window! Took his phone, took his charger, took his bloody wallet. And now he's ignoring me. He's won’t answer his goddamn phone.”

I frowned. The words didn't fit properly. Why would Daddy ignore Mum? He wouldn't. Not on purpose. Not unless... he didn't want to be found.

That made my tummy feel cold. Like I'd swallowed an ice cube whole and it was sitting there, refusing to melt.

I turned to look at Mack again. He was lying on his back now, eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. His mouth was a thin line. In the dim light from the doorway, I could see his jaw clenched tight, making a little muscle jump in his cheek. He looked older suddenly, like the night had added years to him that weren't there at bedtime.

I whispered, “Is Daddy gone?”

He didn't answer straight away. His hands were tucked under the doona, still and balled in fists. I could feel his whole body tense beside me, like he was holding himself together by being as stiff as possible.

“I don't know,” he whispered finally. But his voice was flat, like when you already know the answer but don't want to say it out loud.

My chest felt tight. I wasn't sure if it was from worry or the way I'd been holding my breath. The moonlight through the curtains cast silver-blue shadows across the bed, turning our pyjamas into ghostly shapes.

“Is Mum crying?” I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

“Maybe,” he said.

I hated that word. Maybe is just yes in a coat that's trying too hard. It's the word grown-ups use when they don't want to say no but can't bring themselves to say yes. It's a word full of empty spaces where the truth should be.

There was more rustling from the kitchen — the soft cluttering of things being moved, maybe a drawer opening. Then the kettle clicked on with its familiar hum. Grandma always made tea when people were upset. It was like her superpower. Not the exciting kind that lets you fly or become invisible, but the quiet kind that knows exactly when a warm cup of something might hold a person together when they're falling apart.

Then Mum's voice came again, but quieter now. It sounded tired. The kind of tired that sits in your bones, not just your eyes. The kind that makes your words come out heavy and slow, like they're being dragged up from a deep well.

“What if he’s… what if he's really gone this time?”

I didn't know what that meant. Gone like at work? Gone like on a plane? Or gone like the neighbour's dog that never came back after it ran through the hole in the fence?

I didn’t want to ask.

Mack shifted beside me. I could feel his whole body tense up like a spring. Like he was getting ready to jump out of bed and run – though whether towards something or away from it, I couldn't tell.

“Don't get up,” he whispered again, softer this time.

“I wasn’t.”

We listened.

I tried to match the voices to faces in my head, as if that would make the words make more sense. I pictured Mum's sharp eyes, her lipstick never quite even, the way her mouth curled when she was tired. How her hair always looked like it was trying to escape from whatever clip or band she used to hold it back. I pictured Grandma's kind wrinkles and the way her hands always moved when she spoke, like she was smoothing invisible creases in the air. Hands that were never still, even when she was sitting quiet.

Then I heard Mum say, “I need them to stay here for a few days. Just while I sort things out.”

Grandma replied, gentle and sure. “That's fine. You get yourself sorted. They'll be alright here.” Her voice was warm and solid, like a blanket you could wrap around yourself when the world got too cold.

Mum again: “Tell them he went away for work. That's what I told them before.”

My eyes prickled. Tiny needles of hurt behind them, sharp and sudden.

But he didn’t go away for work.

He went away because... because he wanted to? Because he didn't want us anymore?

No. That couldn't be right. Dads don't just leave. They might go to work or to the pub or to help a mate move house, but they come back. They always come back. That's what dads do.

Isn't it?

Mack shifted again and whispered, “She said that last time.”

I nodded, even though he couldn't see it. A lump had formed in my throat, making it hard to swallow. It felt like I'd tried to eat a marshmallow without chewing it properly.

There was another silence from the hallway. A deep one this time, like the kind that comes after someone leaves the room but before anyone else realises they're gone. The kind of silence that feels like it's waiting for someone to break it.

Then the soft pad of footsteps. Not coming toward us, but moving away.

The door didn't open. Mum didn't come in.

The front door creaked again — softer this time. Or maybe she'd just gone to the spare room. Hard to tell in the dark. The kitchen light switched off, casting the thin slice of hallway visible through our door into darkness.

The hallway light clicked off.

Darkness slipped back into the room like a blanket pulled up to the chin. The only light now came from the dim blue glow of Grandpa's old digital clock radio, casting everything in an underwater hue that reminded me of my jellyfish dream. It felt like that had been hours ago, though it was probably only minutes.

“She didn't come in,” I whispered.

Mack didn't answer for a second. Then: “Maybe she will in the morning.”

He didn't sound like he believed it. His words were hollow, like the chocolate Easter bunnies that look solid but crumble when you bite into them.

I curled onto my side, facing the cupboard. I didn't think about the ghost this time. The room didn't feel scary in that way. It felt heavy, like someone had filled it with too many words and there was nowhere left for the quiet ones to go. Like all the questions I wanted to ask were stuck in the air, too big to fall, too heavy to float away.

I hugged Ribbons to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut. Her soft fur was worn thin in places, but she still smelled like home. Like my bed, my room, my life before tonight.

I didn’t want to cry. Not yet.

But I thought about Daddy's voice, and the way he used to say, “Alright, kiddo, who's up for pancakes?” every Sunday morning. The way he'd let me stir the batter even though I always splashed it on the counter. The way he'd draw smiley faces on my pancakes with maple syrup and then pretend they were talking to me.

And how we hadn't had pancakes in a long time.

Not since the day he and Mum had that big fight in the kitchen, when they thought we were playing outside but we were actually sitting on the back step, listening to every word. Not since Mum threw a plate and it shattered against the wall, and Dad said things that made no sense about “suffocating” and “trapped” and “mistakes.”

Words that grown-ups use when they're angry that don't seem to mean what the dictionary says they should.

I pressed my face into the pillow and breathed in the scent of Grandma's washing powder. It smelled clean and safe, like nothing could ever go wrong if things smelled this nice. But that wasn't true, was it? Things could go wrong even in the nicest-smelling places.

Outside, the wind had picked up, rustling the leaves of the gum tree by the window. It made a soft shushing sound, like someone saying, “There, there. It'll be alright.”

But I wasn't sure if I believed that either.

The darkness stayed for a long time.

I didn't know how long, exactly, but it felt like the kind of long where the night stretches out forever and even the shadows get bored of standing still. The darkness in Grandma and Grandpa's house was different from our darkness at home. Thicker somehow, like black treacle instead of just plain black. Maybe because there weren't any streetlights outside their window, just the moon and stars playing hide and seek behind the clouds.

Mack had stopped moving beside me. I could tell by the way his breathing evened out — slow and deep and just a tiny bit snuffly through his nose. He always breathed through his mouth when he was awake, but his nose took over when he slept, making little whistling sounds on the out-breath. I wondered if he was really asleep or just pretending again, too tired to talk. Too tired to think about what we'd heard.

My eyes stayed open.

Sometimes I tried to close them, but my head kept doing circles, like a dog chasing its tail, only the tail was a thought that wouldn't sit down properly. It kept running and running, getting nowhere but too stubborn to stop.

Daddy gone. Mum not saying goodbye. The lie about work.

The words tumbled around like clothes in the washing machine, getting all tangled up with each other. I stared at the patch of ceiling where the moonlight made a silvery puddle, watching it shift and change shape as clouds passed outside.

I didn't feel angry, not yet. Just a kind of floaty confusion, like being in a bath that's gone cold but you're still in it because you don't know what else to do. Like when you're watching telly and someone changes the channel without telling you why, and suddenly everything's different but you're still sitting in the same spot.

The hallway creaked once more — soft and slow, like the house letting out a sigh. But no one came. No footsteps, no door opening, no Mum poking her head in to check on us. Just the empty creak of a house that's been standing too long in one place.

Outside, the night sounds drifting through the winter air like a question that nobody answered. The sound made me think of the stories Dad used to tell about bush spirits and creatures that only came out when everyone was asleep. Not scary ones, just curious ones that wanted to see how humans lived when they weren't looking.

I thought maybe if I concentrated hard enough, I could make Daddy appear in the doorway. Just standing there, all sleepy and ruffled and smiling the way he used to when he snuck in after a late shift and brought us surprise doughnuts. If I wished hard enough, maybe the cupboard ghost would get bored and go find him and bring him back. Maybe they could be friends, the ghost and Dad.

I squeezed Ribbons tight to my chest. Her fur was worn smooth in patches where I'd rubbed it too much, especially around her ears. One of her eyes was looser than the other, making her look like she was giving a permanent wink. Mum had offered to fix it once, but I said no. I liked that Ribbons always looked like she knew a secret.

Her stitched-on smile felt braver than mine.

The room felt colder now, or maybe it was just me getting colder from staying awake too long. My feet had gone all prickly, like they were filled with fizzy water. I tucked them up against Mack's leg to warm them. He didn't stir.

I thought about Mum's words again. “Tell them he went away for work.” The knot in my tummy tightened. Grown-ups were supposed to tell the truth. That's what they always told us. “Honesty is the best policy,” Grandpa would say, tapping the side of his nose like he was sharing a big secret. But now Mum wanted Grandma to tell us something that wasn't true. Which meant Mum had already told us something that wasn't true.

It made my head hurt to think about it.

Eventually, I noticed the tick-tick of the clock again. Just once at first. Then again. Then steady.

Tick… tock… Tick… tock…

Like it had been watching quietly, waiting to see if things would settle. Time had gone to sleep for a little while, but now it was back, counting seconds as if nothing had happened. As if everything was normal.

I listened to it count for a while. I think I made it to sixty-three before I started blinking slower. The room no longer felt sharp and strange. The cupboard was just a cupboard, not a home for ghosts. The shadows were just shadows, not monsters waiting to pounce. The darkness was just darkness, the kind that comes before morning.

My arms and legs felt warm again, the kind of warm that spreads out like honey on toast. The whisper of the wind outside brushed against the window, just once, like it was checking in to make sure I was alright. I liked that. The wind had been here before me and would be here long after, whistling through Broken Hill, ruffling the leaves of the gum trees, sweeping across the red dirt. There was something comforting about that.

I yawned, my jaw stretching so wide it made a little popping sound. My eyelids felt heavy now, like someone had stuck tiny weights to my eyelashes.

When sleep finally came, it didn't come in with a bang. It tiptoed in like Grandma in her slippers, pulled the blanket up to my chin, and kissed me goodnight without saying a word. It wrapped around me like a familiar hug, soft and safe and warm.

And just before I drifted off completely, I thought I heard the cupboard door creak open very slightly. But I wasn't scared. Maybe the ghost was just checking that we were alright. Maybe he was keeping watch while everyone else was sleeping or gone or telling lies.

Maybe he was the only one telling the truth.