The Things She's Seen

Written by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, The Things She’s Seen is a young-adult mystery set in a small, remote Australian town in which a fire and murder have recently shocked the residents. The story follows detective Michael Teller and the ghost of his daughter, Beth, as they investigate this murder and uncover a dark conspiracy among the town’s police and leading citizens. As an example of speculative fiction, The Things She’s Seen enhances the typical detective narrative with elements of magical realism as Michael interacts with his daughter’s ghost and learns to cope with his grief over her death. While the two are investigating, they also meet two other characters—Catching and Crow—who have supernatural qualities. The story reflects its Aboriginal Australian authors’ cultural beliefs about life, death, relationships, and Finding a Voice Through Storytelling.

Originally published in Australia in 2018, the novel was first titled Catching Teller Crow. In 2019, the American edition of the book was published under the title The Things She’s Seen. Catching Teller Crow won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize for Young Adult Fiction and the Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel. Under its American title, the book was named one of Bank Street College’s Best Children’s Books of the Year.

This guide refers to the American hardcover edition published in 2019 by Alfred A. Knopf.

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide contain descriptions of rape, sexual violence, and racism against Indigenous Australians.

Plot Summary

The ghost of Beth Teller, a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl who recently died in a car accident, remains behind in the world of the living because she feels responsible for helping her father, Michael, to overcome his intense grief. As far as Beth knows, Michael is the only person who can see or hear her, and she encourages him to stop isolating himself from the family and to take an interest in life again. Michael is a senior detective whose latest case involves overseeing a local police department’s investigation of a fire at a children’s home. None of the children were hurt in the fire, but an unidentified adult body was found, and both the director (Tom Cavanagh) and the nurse (Martin Flint) are missing. Michael does not think this is particularly suspicious, but he agrees to Beth’s suggestion that they interview a young woman who might be a witness to the fire.

They go to the local hospital and speak to Isobel Catching, who might know something about the fire but is skeptical about whether they will believe her story. Speaking in verse, she tells them that the story begins on a night when she and her mother stopped to watch a sunset. An unexpected storm caused a flash flood that seriously injured Catching and killed her mother. When Catching regained consciousness, she found herself in an alien, gray world with two suns. Fleeing from strange, shimmering beasts, she suffered a head injury and a broken hand. Two humanoid creatures with leathery wings then noticed that she—unlike the rest of the world around her—was colorful and bright, so they abducted her. These “Fetchers” took her into an underground tunnel, where they healed her wounds and announced their intention to give her to someone who wanted to take her colors.

Michael returns to his hotel, but Beth goes back to Catching’s room and is surprised when Catching can see her. Catching suggests that Beth’s unwillingness to move on to the next part of the afterlife is unhealthy. For the first time, Beth recalls seeing a place of beautiful colors just after she died, but she turned back when she heard her father crying. Beth feels guilty for even having the thought that she might like to move on to this other place.

The next morning, Michael learns that the man found dead after the fire was stabbed to death. They meet Derek Bell, the local police chief. Bell seems nervous when Michael wants to interview Bell’s old friend, Alexander Sholt, whose charity founded the children’s home. Bell sends one of his officers, Allie Hartley, with Michael to Sholt’s house. On the way, Hartley tells Michael about her childhood friend, Sarah Blue, an Aboriginal girl who went missing as a teenager 20 years ago. Michael agrees to look into the case, which was poorly investigated by Gerry Bell, the current chief’s father.

At the Sholt house, Alex’s father, Charles, tells Michael that Alex is not at home. Beth searches the house and finds a broken second-floor window with black hairs stuck in the frame. Hartley receives a call and learns that Cavanagh and Flint are dead. She shows Michael the scene where the two men’s bodies were dumped: an inaccessible storm drain. Derek Bell and Michael do not understand how the bodies got there. When a neighbor says that she heard wings in the night, Beth rushes to the hospital to warn Catching, believing that the Fetchers must be nearby. However, Catching is unconcerned and tells Beth that no one is after her now; she is only telling her story because she wants her truth to be heard.

Catching resumes her story. She describes waking in an underground room and meeting a strange, gray-shaded girl called Crow, who told her that someone called the “Feed” was going to eat the colors that lived inside Catching; Crow indicated that many other girls had already met this fate. The Fetchers then drugged Catching and carried her into another room, where the Feed—a tall, white creature—plunged his hands into her belly and drew out some of her colors. Terrified and in agonizing pain, Catching watched as the Feed ate her colors. Afterward, she recited the names of her matrilineal ancestors and resolved to be strong like her grandmothers. She decided that someday, she would make the Feed feel fear.

Catching pauses her story here. After leaving the hospital, Beth and Michael argue over Michael’s refusal to attend Beth’s grandfather’s birthday party. Beth walks away from her father. When she is alone, the colors she remembers from right after her death appear again. Beth longs to join them but resists in order to  stay with her father, but she decides that once Michael is reunited with the rest of the family, she will move on. The next morning, Beth and Michael discover Derek Bell’s body; he has also been stabbed to death. Beth learns that her father has been avoiding the family because of his guilt for failing to keep Beth safe. She tells him that he is being unfair and selfish, and he agrees to try to change. They visit Catching, who tells them the end of her story.

Catching was held in the underground room for an unspecified length of time, and her skin turned more deeply gray after each attack by the Feed. At some point, she realized that there were two Feeds, and she came very near to death. She had a dream about the other dead girls, who told her to fight by naming her feelings and countering bad feelings with their opposites. When she woke, she put the dead girls’ advice to work and gradually eliminated her own grayness. When the Fetchers next came to take Catching, she and Crow attacked them and fled into the tunnels. One of the Feeds chased them, but they confronted him, frightening him into running away. They tracked him to a cage, where birds of all colors were held captive. They entered the cage, and Crow began to dance. Then the world exploded.

After hearing the end of Catching’s story, Michael drives to the children’s home to meet Hartley. Together, they locate and enter an underground bunker. While Beth waits for them, she realizes that Catching’s story was allegorical; in reality, Catching was describing her abduction at the hands of Flint and Cavanagh (the “Fetchers”) and the sexual violence and rape that Bell and Sholt (the “Feeds”) perpetrated against her in the underground bunker at the children’s home.

When her father emerges, he sends Hartley to guide his team to the site. Catching appears with a crow on her shoulder, and Beth realizes that her father mistakenly believes that Catching killed the men. Beth explains that Catching has the talent to act as a conduit between the living world and the spirit world. The crow on Catching’s shoulder is both Crow from Catching’s story and the ghost of Sarah Blue, Hartley’s childhood friend, who was one of the earliest victims of the four men. The ghost of Sarah Blue killed the men.

With the mystery finally solved, Beth realizes that she must move on. After a final conversation with her father, Beth joins Catching and Crow as they fly up into the sky to join the beautiful colors.