“Find something useful to do with your morning,' she thought to him as she neared her chambers. 'Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into a river while no one's looking and then rescue him.”

“Clasping her to him, he hugged her for a long while and she felt his guilt and fear subside. “Do you want to see something very special—something magical?”Giggling she whispered, “You already showed me that this morning.”He swatted her bottom. “Minx! Not that!”

“She felt for a moment the child's guilt and panic that she was to blame for something-for finally getting to know him. She that it wasn't the getting to know him part that would convict her in the end. It was the finally.”

“Goodnight!" She started her walk. Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. "Are you happy?" she said?"Am I what?" he cried.But she was gone - running in the moonlight. Her Front door shut gently.”

“He leaned over her, rested his head on her shoulder, and clung to her, his tears soaking into her shirt.What the fuck was she supposed to do with this? Hug him and say something comforting? He was blackmailing her and now she was supposed to take care of him like some kind of fucking nanny or something? She didn't know how to do that. What did people do to comfort each other?”

“Sarah wondered what they—the ‘they’ who had taken her child; the ‘they’ or the ‘him’ or the ‘her’—were feeding him.Sometimes a fear dug at her until she acknowledged it: maybe they weren’t feeding him at all.Who would do that? Who would willingly starve a child? Who would hurt her baby? Who would take her baby? Who was this person and why were they allowed to exist?And what would I do to that person if I got the chance?There were days when she lay on the bed and concocted scenarios in her head. She would see herself finding Lockie. She was never really sure of the place. It would be a dark room in a dark house but the location wasn’t important. She would see herself rescuing her child, folding him in her arms and saying his name. Then she would see the person who had taken him.There was never a face, just a body with a blank head, but Sarah would see herself grow until she towered over the person and then she would hit and hit and hit until there was nothing left and all the time she would be screaming, ‘How dare you take my child? How dare you take him?’She had to find him. The desperate need to find him swirled around her body with everything she did. It ate into her soul and sometimes she had to hold on to the kitchen counter to stop herself running out into the road and screaming his name. She wanted to be looking for him all the time. She wanted to leave Sammy and Doug and just keep going until she got to the city and then she wanted to knock on every door across the whole of Sydney until she found her son. But maybe he wasn’t even in Sydney anymore. Maybe he wasn’t even in Australia. Where are you, Lockie? Where are you, where are you, where are you?”