“Dad called this the shadow time. The sun sucks colour from the world, he'd said. He'd taught her to see the softer colours of the dusk, the green and orange bark, the purple shadows. At times like this Flinty felt her edges vanish, leaving her part of the mountains, like the wallaby pulling wonga vine down from a thorn bush, or the sleepy possum peering from a tree.”

“They'd manage. Her ghost from the future had said so. He'd been right about the bad coming. Now she had to trust good would come as well.”

“What was war really like? What vast crack had buried Jeff down in the mud, had sent Andy off with cattle? What had changed her best friend so much he could barely look at her now?”

“With life came loss. The war and the years since had taught her that. There's be sadness in her life to come, as well as happiness. Even the most blessed lives had both. She'd live them as they came.”

“You're a heroin Flinty McAlpine. I reckon you can do anything you set your mind to.”

“I waved and cried and smiled at the same time like Mum and Mrs Mack, so Sandy and Jeff remember us smiling not sobbing as they left.”

“We're all bits that the war didn't take, Flinty thought, gazing at the stranger's back. But those left behind had a right to know more about the beast who'd chewed their lives and spat the remnants out.”