And All the Stars

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I BLAME THIS BOOK ON FLANNERY AND WENDY DARLING and thank them for it.

Additional thanks to Dr Jennifer Elliman, Dr Chris Fellows, Julie Dillon, Lexie Cenni, and Estara Swanberg.

Spelling is Australian English.

Madeleine Cost’s world was a tight, close space, a triangular tube tilted so her head lay lower than her feet. Light reflected off metal, not enough to give any detail, and there was barely room to squeeze one hand past the slick surface, to explore face and skull and find powdery dust and a throbbing lump. Dull pain also marked upper shoulder, hip, thigh. She felt dusty all over, grimed with it, except her lower half, which was wet. Free-flowing liquid drained past her head.

She could smell blood.

Ticket barrier. Those were the rectangles of metal above and beside her. Madeleine could remember reaching for her returned ticket as the red gates snapped back and then – then a blank space between there and here. Thursday lunchtime and she’d been at St James Station, planning to walk down to Woolloomooloo to wait for Tyler, just off the plane and sure to be strained and tired and all the more interesting for it.

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