The Invitation

Lucy looked down at her hands. She didn’t want to see him. Ever.

‘You go and …’ Lucy said.

And then, there he was. The whole of him. Right on the ground, outside the kitchen, in front of her. His hair had grown long over his face. He looked slightly nervous and hitched his shorts with his big tanned hands. His lips curved into a smile. Lucy folded her arms crossly in front of her and met his eyes.

‘Hi,’ he said, looking up at both girls.

‘Well, well,’ Lucy said coldly.

‘Hi. So, how are you?’ he said.

‘Why are you here?’ It took all her courage to keep her thoughts away from the last time she’d seen him. She’d been a whole person then, and he’d held all of her.

‘I, um, thought I’d come say hi,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while.’

She watched him cast his eyes nervously over her legs, her feet, the chair, the metal, the wheels.

‘What makes you think I even want to see you?’ she said.

‘Well, maybe you don’t, huh?’

‘Well, maybe it would have been nice if you’d showed up, say, eight months ago.’

‘I’m sorry, Lu, I was a bloody jerk.’

‘Are,’ she said fiercely.

‘I couldn’t face the thought …’ He looked around wildly so that his eyes didn’t rest for too long on her dirty, unmoving, bare feet.

‘Yeah, well, fancy that. Me neither.’

‘Come on, you two,’ Nel said. ‘Let’s move through this already. Craig, want a drink?’

‘Nah, I uh, was just popping in to invite … invite you round to my place on Saturday week. I’m having a party. Be great if you came,’ he said to Lucy, and she couldn’t help but notice how his eyes were fearful. ‘You, uh, look good, Lucy. Oh shit. Listen, come if you like, and Nel, you come too. I’ll be going,’ he said. He turned around. ‘See ya!’

His back was broad and hard beneath the flimsy cotton of his blue t-shirt. He plunged his hands into his pockets and his head hung forward, as if in defeat. Lucy didn’t realise that she was holding the arms of her wheelchair so tightly that her fingers were in a cramp. Then he was crunching along the gravel back to his truck and Lucy gave Nel a look of dark thunder.

‘What?’ said Nel.

‘Nothing. It’s nauseating, that’s what. Not a squeak from him all this time, and then he rocks up because YOU tell him to, oozing pity and … and guilt and obligation. Ugh, Nel. I know you meant well telling him stuff, but honestly …’

‘He still likes you, Lu.’

‘No he doesn’t.’

‘And you like him still.’

‘I do not!’

‘Sure.’

‘Nel, I’d rather be a stuffed kangaroo than go anywhere near him again. Now, which cabin d’you want? We need to grab it before Dad gets back with the guests so we can make sure they don’t take that one?’

Lucy Wright, sixteen and a paraplegic after a recent car accident that took her mother's life, lives in Queensland on a 10,000 acre farm with her father. When Lucy investigates strange lights over the creek at the bottom of the property, she discovers a mystery that links the lights to the science of cymatics and Scotland’s ancient Rosslyn Chapel.

But beyond the chapel is an even larger mystery. One that links the music the chapel contains to Norway’s mysterious Hessdalen lights, and beyond that to Saturn and to the stars. Lucy’s discoveries catapult her into a parallel universe connected to our own by means of resonance and sound, where a newly emerging world trembles on the edge of disaster. As realities divide, her mission in this new world is revealed and she finds herself part of a love story that will span the galaxy.

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Genre - Young Adult SF

Rating - PG

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