Read the first chapter of Every Time She Wakes by Petronella McGovern

Read an extract from Every Time She Wakes by Petronella McGovern.

1

A single thud.

So loud that I hear it over the relentless wind battering the house. I listen in the darkness, hoping it’s the front door, hoping it’s Frankie home from the cocktail bar, hoping she won’t be drunk and stumbling and wake the whole family.

But there are no other noises, it must have been a falling branch.

Unless the thud was inside my head— the tablets I swallowed after dinner haven’t dulled the pounding pain.

Taking the phone from my bedside table, I type a message: Are you on your way?

I’m trying to give our eldest daughter the freedom I never had, but it’s a push-pull of emotions: excitement for her to be going to university and enjoying the social life, along with concern for her safety. Late at night, she has to catch two buses and an Uber from the other side of the city back to our house. When I suggested a midnight curfew, Frankie presented me with a philosophical argument from one of her exams.

‘Time isn’t real, Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s an illusion. We only have the present, this moment now. The future doesn’t yet exist so I can’t possibly tell you what time I’ll be home.’

After a year studying philosophy, nineteen-year-old Frankie thinks she has the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Ha! At forty-nine, I now have more questions than answers.

My phone pings with a reply: Home soon. Can Clio stay? Her train’s cancelled.

Sure, I answer, wondering what Frankie means by ‘soon’. Public transport is so unreliable. At the beginning of the year, I’d drive to the bus stop at our local shops and collect her. Tonight, though, she’s with Clio. Safety in numbers.

Beside me, Vince shifts slightly in the bed. He always sleeps like the dead. If he were awake, he’d say, ‘Stop worrying, Suze. Close your eyes.’

So I close my eyes and focus on my breathing: in, out, slow and deep. My head throbs with every breath. Bushfires have been burning north of Sydney for weeks and smoke taints the air. I hope Issy took her asthma preventer before bed, she’s been coughing every night.

With the strong winds whipping through the gum trees, Vince has been checking the bushfire app even more often than usual. He showed me an update before bed.

‘Only thirty kilometres away now,’ he told me, pointing to the corridor of bush leading directly from the fire front to our home.

‘Thirty kilometres is a long way.’ I reassured him with logic, even though his fear isn’t logical. ‘The fire would have to jump the six-lane motorway then snake down the valley in a very specific path to get to us. That won’t happen, honey.’

‘The wind’s pushing it towards us,’ he insisted. ‘Random gusts can spread embers miles ahead of the flames.’

Our house backs on to a national park which is usually clamouring with life, but lately it has been silent: no kookaburras laughing, no wattlebirds chattering.

The wildlife shares our sense of dread.

While the wind is still battering our house, there’s another sound beyond it—the drumbeat of a helicopter, flying back from the fires.

Vince lets out a shuddery snore so loud I’m surprised he doesn’t wake himself. I’ve never understood how he can drop off so quickly and deeply, especially at a time like this. But it’s a reprieve for me not to see the fear in his eyes. He has been rubbing the scar on his forearm without even realising he’s doing it.

Makes my gut churn every time because it’s all my fault.

The least I can do for him is this: stay awake, vigilant, listening to the wind, and waiting for our daughter.

Slipping out of bed, I go to the kitchen and open the back door. Stand on the deck and peer down our long driveway. The garden lights glimmer faintly, no match for this murky night. Another strong gust tears through the trees and twigs clatter onto our wooden deck. The acrid smell of smoke is somehow worse in the dark, forewarning a danger I cannot see. A monster creeping through the bone-dry bush, hidden until it hurtles down the slope and pounces. Too late for us to escape.

Where are you, Frankie? Hurry back to our sanctuary by the bush. Except our house is feeling less and less like a sanctuary, more of a liability.

I’m about to head inside to make a cup of tea and wait for the girls when the wind drops and an eerie calm descends. Even though the night is warm, I shiver.

The world is holding its breath. A moment of quietude.

Are we in the eye of the storm?

From the darkness above me, a shape materialises, screeching and swooping. Huge black wings outstretched. I race towards the door before realising it’s just a bat— though we’ve seen no bats nor birds for weeks. The creature dives twice before disappearing into the night.

As I’m closing the door, the wind returns with a vengeance, shaking branches, ripping leaves. I hope the girls are safe, out of this wild weather, inside a bus on their way back here.

Deciding against tea, I rush back to my still-warm bed and the com forting rumble of Vince’s snores.

-

An hour later, I’m still awake when the grating of the screen door echoes through the house. Frankie and Clio are home at last and giggling in the kitchen. I send down a silent plea: Shush for Issy. If my youngest is woken now, there’s no chance of school tomorrow.

I hear the girls tiptoe up the stairs. Running water in the bathroom, the flush of a toilet, more whispering, then the house is quiet again.

Finally I can sleep, I tell myself.

Who am I kidding?

It wouldn’t matter what time Frankie had come home or how many painkillers I took, I was never going to sleep tonight.

Because tomorrow, my boss will see my resignation letter.

I chose the cowardly option of sending the email after Mandi had left for the day. I feel I’m letting her down. She’ll want reasons but I can’t tell her the truth— I don’t want to leave but I have no choice.

Reaching out, I tap the bedside table until I hit my phone and it glows with the time: 2.23 am, Tuesday, 17 November. For most of my working life, I’ve been at the same university where Frankie now studies but in a month, I’ll no longer be Suzanna Vitale, Careers Counsellor. Who the hell will I be then?

A noise cuts through my thoughts. The screen door squeaking again. Weird, given that Frankie and Clio are already home. They must have left it half-open and it’s banging with the wind.

Reluctantly, I get up to close it. As I creep past my girls’ bedrooms, the smell of smoke hangs in the air, stronger than before. Midway down the stairs, darkness engulfs me; a thick smog blocking out any moonlight.

I’m on the bottom step when there’s a loud knocking.

The rap of a fist against wood.

I freeze.

Someone is at my door.

 Every Time She Wakes by Petronella McGovern is out now.

---

Every Time She Wakes

by Petronella McGovern

An unputdownable thriller from the bestselling author of Six Minutes and The Last Trace.

FIND OUT MORE