Chapter 31

When Ruth arrives, William’s ear is aching. He waits outside but falls asleep before Ruth arrives. She seems surprised to find them living in the house. It turns out Mrs Griffith said Uncle John was dying and did not mention about the others. She was scheming and hoped that Ruth would take control.

Chapter 31 Quotes

A silence fell. William looked from one woman to the other, sensing an unspoken battle of wills, delicately poised. He was also uncomfortably aware of the contrast the two made, and that his mother came away the poorer. (Ruth and William’s mother) Chapter 31

‘My father said that I had to ask William. Apparently, it’s his choice.’ Chapter 31

… A lesson, for both nephew and daughter. A test for him, and a humiliation for her. (William and Ruth tested by John) Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Ruth and William talk and she seems friendly. She tells William that the house could have been fully restored by a trust organisation but John was too stubborn and didn’t want visitors. He learns that John’s wife left him when he moved to Kuran house. John got his dream at the expense of his reputation, his wife and his daughter. Ruth has been following her father’s Independence League newsletter.

Chapter 32 Quotes

Ruth laughed again. ‘That was eighteen years ago. He’s got plenty of money now. No – he likes the house this way. So he can show everyone how badly the word has treated him’.
‘So,’ she said, ‘will you fix the pool, when this whole place is yours?’
William went still. There it was. Spoken out loud. Now the attack would come.
Instead, she smiled. ‘You don’t have to worry, you know. I don’t want it. Not the house. Not the property. Not any of it.’ Chapter 32

Chapter 33

The relationship between John and Ruth is retraced. Ruth has become different from him, ‘new age’ and married to a young man whom John did not like named Carl. On one visit, Ruth and Carl make love loudly while staying in the house. John feels it is like de ja vu and thinks it’s in spite to him. John disinherits her.

Chapter 33 Quotes

He felt nothing at all, only an exquisite isolation. Whatever he did from now on would be for himself, and that would be enough. Chapter 33

Chapter 34

William has a dream about wheat burning. He too is haunted by fire dreams like his uncle. His ear continually throbs now. Ruth asks for a tour and William shows her the graveyard. Ruth explains about how Indigenous people had burnt the grass each year to have green fresh grass to encourage animals out of the hills. Unfortunately, that grass suitable for grazing is what attracted the white people.

Chapter 34 Quotes

This inheritance business is for his sake, not yours. So that his precious station survives after he’s gone. (Ruth to William) Chapter 34

‘But maybe it shouldn’t survive. I don’t think this piece of land has ever brought anyone much happiness. Not the Aborigines. They just saw it get taken away. Not the Whites. It only made them hated. Not my mother. It cost her a husband, and me a father. I don’t think it’s even made Dad happy. Not really. Just look at him.’ (Ruth to William) Chapter 34

Chapter 35

William feels that Ruth is trying to make the inheritance seem undesirable. However William is in love with the property. It seems the land has seized him like Daniel and John before him. Ruth is determined to tell William the other side of the story, about Indigenous experience under the white settlers. She outlines how they were often killed and others rounded up and sent to the nearby Cherbourg settlement. William reacts with rhetoric from the Independence league. When challenged, William reveals that the property is a lease not freehold. He doesn’t fully understand what he has said or why it is important, however it means it may be open to challenge after all. Ruth has a weapon now.

Chapter 35 Quotes

And suddenly he wanted to be anywhere but where he was, to be escaping to somewhere green and wet and far away. A place where there were people, and schools, and back yards with grass to play on, and other children … not these deserted hills all around, and the loneliness of the house at his back. Chapter 35

Chapter 36

William is unwell but everyone is distracted by John McIvor’s second heart attack. William goes to see him when he returns from the hospital. He tells William that he smells burning all the time, William suggests that it is the nearby fire. His uncle says he knows that William sees the burning man visions too.

He tells William that he knows that he told Ruth about the lease status on the farm. John is not upset as he thinks there is no one that can make a claim, that all the local Indigenous people have gone. William says he doesn’t want the property but Uncle John can already see it wants him, it speaks to him. William has a vision of the waterhole, he thinks it will cure his ear. His uncle tells him to go there alone and he does.

Chapter 36 Quotes

For William, Ruth’s departure marked a point where somehow the real world began to slip away, and where his illness began to consume him. Chapter 36
‘Forget about the lease. There can never be a claim on Kuran Station regardless. There’s nobody who can lodge one.’ Chapter 36

‘When I die, Will, all this will be yours.’
‘You’re not dying.’
‘It’s the only way. You can’t own this house until I’m dead.’
‘I don’t even want it!’ Chapter 36

‘This country will speak to you too, if you listen. The blacks say it flows into you through your feet, and they’re right. But it’s not an Aboriginal thing. It’s not a white thing either. It’s a human thing. Not everyone has it. But I do. And you have it too.’ Chapter 36

Chapter 37

William takes off early in the morning alone. He is in an exhausted state and slightly delirious after spending all day hiking toward the waterhole. He waits for his mother to pick him up as John was going to tell her to meet him but she doesn’t come. William sleeps and sees a man murdering another man, and the man speaks to him saying he is a long way from home. It suggests that he should continue on. This is the first of the visions that the land offers the young boy.

Chapter 37 Quotes

The water hole, he reminded himself. All that mattered was that he get there, then dive into its depths and … and do what? It had all seemed so clear in the old man’s room, but William found he was struggling to remember. Illness was seeping back into his head, muddling his thoughts. Chapter 37

You’re a long way from home, boy, it whispered, all fury and hate. But not far enough. This isn’t the place. (Man in William’s first vision) Chapter 37

Chapter 38

The next day William keeps going thinking the vision is just a dream about a story his uncle had told him. His second vision comes after wandering through the day once again. It appears to be Kirchmeyer, the explorer, he tells him his mother is not coming. It also suggests he is getting closer to something. That thing will be the key to Kuran’s history.

Chapter 38 Quotes

It appeared on a ridge ahead – a misshapen thing, a tangle of arms and legs, like some giant, gangling insect. William gazed with mute disbelief as it descended towards him. It was the evil spirit-shape of the drought itself, he decided. Chapter 38

It’s not far now. The sound was hissing sand. It’s been waiting for you. (Man in second vision) Chapter 38

Chapter 39

William continues and at times he thinks he hears a car but then it’s gone. He perseveres and feels the enormity of the place. He sees his third vision. It is a bunyip like the one his uncle told him about, it tells him he is in the place. William feels that it is here that was sacred to the Indigenous people, not the rock rings that his uncle had told him about. It also says he bears the mark, it is the mark on his cap that it refers to, the badge. It will be revealed the badge was from the mounted police who hunted Indigenous population.

William arrives at the pool but it is dry despite the idea that it never runs dry as his uncle had said. Ruth arrives to find him, symbolic of her being the only one to truly show the concern of a mother. Noone else is even looking for him after three days.

Chapter 39 Quotes

William shrinks away. He knows this thing. His uncle had told him about it on the night of the shooting stars. It was a beast that lived in caves or bottomless pools, it stalked hills and mountain ranges, and left broken trails through the forests.
The wild eyes regarded him.
This is the place, child.
Understanding shook William. The hilltop at the campground was not a meeting place, and the stones there had no meaning. This was the only place, and his uncle had never found it. But somehow, through all his wanderings, William had.
You bear the mark, boy. (The bunyip to William in his third vision) Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Dr Moffat comes to visit a sick William when he wakes, yet despite the smell and continual complaining the doctor still misdiagnoses William’s ear. Despite assurances from the doctor that his mother was worried, William remembers it was Ruth who came to save him. The mother says she didn’t look for him because the uncle said not to and she didn’t want to upset him.

William’s mother faces reality and confesses she got it all wrong, but when William insists on seeing a new doctor in town about his ear his mother says no because she is worried about appearances.

Chapter 40 Quotes

‘No, no. Your uncle said you didn’t want me to come. He said you’d gone camping, that you had food and everything. He said I had to let you be. He got so mad, and you know I can’t afford to upset him. I didn’t have a choice.’
She was abject now, slumped in misery. ‘It should have been me that found you. I can’t explain it. I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what to do.’
‘It’s okay’, William said, his voice hollow.
‘No, it’s not. I was wrong.’ It was a shameful truth for once, stripped of all pretences.
‘Everything I’ve done here has been wrong.’ Chapter 40

‘We’ll go into town. Okay? But not right now. We have to clean you up a bit first. Otherwise a doctor might wonder why you’re all battered and bruised … Do you see?’ Chapter 40