Homecoming

Inside, the house is decorated for Christmas but feels empty. While Jess waits for the kettle to boil, she looks at the photographs of herself and Polly, and older photos of her ancestors. Nora referred to these people collectively as the Family, of which she was the last. Next to Nora’s bed stands a photo of Nora and her brother, Thomas, after his return from World War II.

There are no photos of Mr. Bridges, the man to whom Nora was briefly married, and Nora never spoke of him. Jess asked about him once, but Nora claimed that she barely remembered him, and he only contributed DNA to Polly. Now, Jess wonders what Polly knows about Mr. Bridges, reflecting that she herself knows nothing about her own father. Nora told her that because Polly was young and insecure, Jess’s father took advantage of her, leaving Polly before she knew that she was pregnant. Now perusing her grandmother’s library, Jess is surprised to find Nora’s desk an uncharacteristic mess. She surmises that Nora must have planned to return to the library after going up to the attic. Hoping for clues, Jess looks through the scattered papers but sees nothing unusual. She then calls Patrick, Nora’s nurse, who tells Jess that Nora has been acting strangely lately, talking about the past. One day, Nora even hid a book that she was reading, even though it was just an old detective novel.

After a nap, Jess goes to the hospital and is surprised to find Nora in intensive care. She is shocked by how much older Nora looks. The doctor asks about Nora’s advance-care directive, and when Jess asks when Nora can come home, he puts her off. Jess doesn’t take his concern too seriously, believing that he doesn’t know Nora’s spirit like she does.

She falls asleep in a chair next to her grandmother’s bed and dreams of an event that occurred when she was three years old and the tide came in while she was in the private cove at Darling House. She was cut off from shore, and, in real life, Nora had come to sweep her into her arms, rescuing her.

When Nora’s heart monitor suddenly beeps, Jess calls the nurse. Nora awakens and tries to tell Jess something about “the pages.” She begs Jess not to let a man take someone from her. Jess is forced to leave because visiting hours are over, but before she goes, she hears Nora mumble the word “halcyon.”

Later, Jess wonders if Nora was referring to Polly and wonders if she feared, in her delirious state, that Mr. Bridges was taking Polly away. She also recognizes the word “halcyon,” remembering it from Thomas’s funeral when she was young. After Thomas’s death, the wake at Darling House was filled with Nora’s friends. At the time, a young Jess was overwhelmed, and she listened for the chimes of Polly’s pendants but didn’t hear them. Instead, she escaped to the garden and hid under a fern. While she was out there, she heard her grandmother talking to a man. When the man mentioned Halcyon, Nora’s face contorted in distress, and she told him that she planned to sell it.

After Thomas’s wake, Polly and Jess walked home to the apartment they lived in at the time. Although Polly was always nervous around adults, when it was just her and Jess, she would often point out the beauty in the world around them. On that day, however, she was quiet, and the young Jess believed that her mother was thinking about their upcoming move to Brisbane. When Jess asked Polly about the word “halcyon,” Polly told Jess that it was a faraway house.

The narrative returns to the present moment. Jess comes home from the hospital to find Mrs. Robinson, the housekeeper, in Nora’s house. Mrs. Robinson has been at Darling House for over 70 years, so Jess asks her about Mr. Bridges. The housekeeper doesn’t know anything about Mr. Bridges wanting to take Polly away, but she admits that Nora had difficulty getting pregnant before having Polly and states that her marriage to Mr. Bridges was a troubled one. After Mrs. Robinson leaves, Patrick calls to tell Jess that Nora received an upsetting letter from a law firm in South Australia the previous week.

The narrative shifts to 1959. In Adelaide Hills, Percy smokes outside while the rest of his family sleeps. The search for Thea ended when the rain began, and Meg is worried about the baby. Percy didn’t tell Meg about Duke’s interest in Kurt, as it would only upset her. Meanwhile, Kurt is upset, especially because he and Matilda fought recently, but he won’t talk to Percy.

Percy walks to Halcyon’s border, thinking about the time he saw Isabel and her husband, Thomas, arguing nearby. Their youngest child, Evie, appeared next to Percy, and he showed her the map he was making to remember where he had recently seen a platypus. Evie claimed that Isabel, an Englishwoman, was afraid of wildfire, but Evie, as an Australian, was not afraid. Evie also declared that she would never move to England.

As Percy recalls this moment, the memory is suddenly shattered by his recollection of Evie’s lifeless body. Now, Percy goes to the water hole, intending to look for the carved wren he lost. However, the ground is so trampled that he knows he will never find it. He surveys the area, remembering the scene he found, but he suddenly gets the feeling that he isn’t alone. He turns off his flashlight, certain that he’s being watched.

The narrative shifts to 2018. In Sydney, Jess wakes at 3:00 a.m. after a restless night in her childhood bed. She wakes up wanting to go home, but she is not even sure where her home truly is. She recalls that after Thomas’s funeral, Polly told her that “wake” used to mean watch, when people would guard a loved one’s body so the spirits wouldn’t steal its soul. Over time, that story became connected in Jess’s mind with the word “halcyon,” and she never forgot it. Now, she searches online for Thomas Turner and Halcyon, and finds an Esquire article from 1960.

The article relates that Thomas was dashing and charismatic, his personality formed by his parents’ neglect and his sister Nora’s adoration. In the war, he distinguished himself by escaping from a prison camp and rescuing an English officer. When the thankful man gave him a reward, Thomas used it to buy the abandoned Wentworth house in Adelaide, renaming it Halcyon. He spent the first 10 years establishing a winery on the property before switching to cattle. This shift was characteristic of Thomas, for his interest in projects often waned quickly, and by 1959, he lost interest in both efforts. At the time of the Turner Tragedy, he was in England, talking to investors about a new scheme.

Reading this article shocks Jess because the details are completely different from Nora’s story that Thomas lived in London and had no wife or children. She finds more articles about the crime, including the coroner’s conclusion that Isabel Turner poisoned herself and her children. Jess also finds mentions of Thea, whose remains were found 20 years later in the garden, giving rise to speculation that dingoes were to blame. Nora has always been so seemingly open about her history that Jess doesn’t understand why she kept this secret. Her journalistic impulses are aroused, and she resolves to investigate further.

Jess arrives at the hospital to find Nora asleep. Settling into a chair, Jess recalls that Nora avoided talking about her brother Thomas. She also now understands why Thomas never returned to Australia. While researching online, she discovers that Daniel Miller, the author of the Esquire article, also wrote a book on the Turner Tragedy. After ordering a copy online, she leaves Nora’s room. On the way out, a nurse stops her to say that Polly called. Jess calls her mother and leaves an update on her voicemail. Later, she calls Mrs. Robinson, who agrees to talk about Isabel. While printing out various articles on the topic, Jess realizes that the story has risen to the level of myth, alongside stories like the Somerton Body. She searches Nora’s bedroom for the letter that Patrick mentioned, but instead she finds a copy of Daniel Miller’s book and settles down to read.

The rest of the chapter is an excerpt from Daniel Miller’s book, As If They Were Asleep. The book describes Isabel Turner’s last day from the moment she rises. Her naturalist father and artist mother died when she was seven years old, and she was raised in a boarding school in England. Isabel’s journal entry for December 24,1959, is banal, describing the morning fog as being very different from that of England. Likewise, she acknowledges that her Australian children are very different from her English self. After writing in her journal, Isabel feeds the chickens and the rooster, Dickens, then walks the garden while drinking her tea. She startles and drops her teacup, shattering it, then reflects that she hadn’t always been so easily surprised, for she was fearless during the war. She is upset about the lost teacup, which she inherited from her mother.

Isabel reflects that her habit of walking was the reason she’d met Thomas, encountering him in the middle of the night while she was standing on a bridge. Later, when the police question Thomas as to whether Isabel had ever seemed preoccupied with suicide, he remembers that meeting and wonders what she was doing by the river in the middle of the night. He also tells the police that Isabel’s mother died by suicide. Miller’s book then describes the various Tambilla residents’ preparations for Christmas Eve. Percy Summers is on his way to the Turner property, while his wife, Meg, and their sons fill orders at the grocery store. Mrs. Pike, Isabel’s housekeeper, and her helper, Becky, arrive at Halcyon after breakfast. When Isabel hears her son, John, playing the piano, she gathers the shattered teacup and goes into the house.