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Chapter 1. Sanctuary The afternoon was wearing on towards early evening, but the daytime heat had not yet eased, and even the shade of the trees provided little respite. Not that much shade ought to have been necessary, because although August was the middle of the dry season, it was also the last month of winter. Despite that, the sun was still hot; very hot, even for Queensland at this time of year, and the density of this mixture of Ash and Poinciana trees was too scant for the foliage to provide any real shelter. By this time yesterday, and the day before, the temperature had eased enough for a brisk walk to be a pleasure. Not today. Noah was enjoying this, one of his favourite leisure pursuits, far less than normal. Brenda, his wife, had pointed out the forecast and suggested he take extra water; she would be insufferable should she get even the slightest inkling that she had been proven right. Walking through woodland was something he particularly liked, offering, as it did, a satisfying contrast between sunshine and cool shade. Not today. A bitter pill to swallow, perhaps, but the freak heatwave had won; he would find the best shelter he could, rest for a few minutes, reinforce his strength from the remainder of his water bottle, then head home. A welcome and unexpected surprise, it was, to see respite looming at the weary push of a large branch, moving it aside to reveal a small hill just ahead, with a dark patch of shadow promising a recess that might bestow some little sanctuary for a hiker. He half stumbled towards it, to discover that not only was it sheltered from the sun, but it wound deep into the rock, perhaps the opening of a tunnel, and turned out to be just so, with enough height for him to be able to walk fully upright. Noah was not foolish enough simply to wander into an underground passage with no torch, no protective gear, no planning, but the air, though far from cool, was still a blissful drop of one or two degrees from the temperature outside, and by comparison, felt at that moment almost as good as an air-conditioned room. Just inside, barely visible in the relative gloom, the wall was rough, with a sloping ledge at the perfect height. He leant on it. Not big enough to function as a seat, but good enough to let him relax some of his tired muscles, which was blissful. He took a mouthful of water and sighed in satisfaction. Now his eyes had adjusted, he walked a little further. Very quickly, the passage turned a corner, and in the distance, another opening could be seen, bright sunlight streaming in. The way seemed level, perhaps sloping slightly downwards, but easy enough to tempt him to walk through to the other side. No. Not without a torch at the very least. Preferably with a helmet, and certainly with suitable boots. He turned and began to make his way back. It was probably the twisting movement as he turned to retrace his steps that first alerted him to such an unusual sensation. Too sensible to wear shorts - despite the stereotypical view of Australians and shorts, they provide no more protection from bites, stings and scratches than does a surfboard - he was dressed properly, in lightweight trousers with no belt. However, the waistband seemed far more loose than it ought to be, and the legs were not clinging to him in quite the way they usually did. Was he so badly dehydrated? He slipped his hand inside the band of his trousers and felt at the muscle structure, which was normal, as far as he could tell. Puzzled, he retraced his steps to the ledge and took another drink, emptying the bottle. By then, everything seemed as it should. Loss of muscle or fat mass due to dehydration: not good. Hallucinating loss of body mass: not good. Time to go home. **** "Noah? You okay?" Brenda called as she heard the front door close. "Yeah, 's me, Possum." "How was the bushwalk?" There was humour edging its way into her voice that told Noah she suspected something and he should be careful what he said. "Great, good one. You should have come with me." They both entered the kitchen at the same time; she from the patio, he from the hallway. Noah immediately opened the fridge and took out a new, cold bottle of water, much of which disappeared almost immediately. She smirked knowingly. "Strewth, you're back early!" she said, pointedly looking at the clock. Well did he know that the more slang she contrived to use, the more danger. "You must have gone like the clappers today. Imagine that, in this heat!" "Going for a shower." He walked out of the kitchen and she watched him go, chuckling to herself. Noah and Brenda Campbell had been friends since primary school, having grown up in Wollonga, on the east coast of Queensland, near Rockhampton, and a few hundred kilometres north of Brisbane. Towards the end of secondary school both families had moved away, separating two teenagers who, although they had never dated, had become close friends and were saddened to lose each other. When, a few years later, Dr. Noah Campbell was offered a post at Rockhampton Hospital, he arrived within a few days of Ms. Brenda Williams, who was taking up a position of chemistry teacher at Wollonga Secondary. It was the search for a flat that brought them together. Both wanting to live in their home town, they ran into each other at a Real Estate Agent, amazed and delighted to find such a close childhood friend after all these years. They wasted no time in picking up where they had left off, and in doing what they ought to have done years ago: falling in love. Within a year, they were married and back at the place they had met, except this time looking for a house. "That's the one," Brenda had said emphatically after looking at only the third photograph. Noah ran his finger down the page and stopped at the address. "Are you sure?" he said. "It's a bit off the beaten track." "That's the one." "You're not trying to tell me you've found your dream house, are you?" "I've found my dream house." They moved in the following month. Two years later, there was still no sign of the children both longed for. Although Noah and Brenda were both determined that a family came first, and would never allow their careers to stand in the way, both still managed to be successful. At twenty- eight, Noah was deputy head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Rockhampton, while Brenda, a few months younger at twenty-seven, found herself head of the Chemistry Department, Wollonga Secondary being a fairly small school. The location of the house turned out to be a blessing. It was very close to the Old Coast Road, running out of Wollonga towards a selection of small, rarely-used beaches, and on its way passed an extensive private estate, owned by a wealthy Indian businessman who, having fallen in love with Australia and its unique wildlife, immediately began to establish a bird sanctuary on his property. Noah, who had always been fond of hiking, often walked The Old Coast road on those occasions that he had an hour or two to spare. The boundary of the private estate was immediately adjacent to the road for a stretch of about two kilometres and, since the mansion at its heart was well-protected, the security of the perimeter was minimal. It was easy to climb, being an old-fashioned wooden fence with crossbars, and no other traps or barbed wire. The lure of the trees and partial shade was irresistible, so Noah was willing to take the (admittedly very small) risk of being accused of trespassing on private land to indulge himself. **** "Just a sec, babe." "Hurry up, won't you? I'm having to sit up all by myself." "Cripes, poor you!" Noah switched on the radio, which was, as usual, tuned to a classical music station and returned to the sofa, where Brenda was waiting, trying (and failing) to look annoyed. They sat, she leaning against him with her legs curled up on beneath her, he with his arm around her. They drank about half a glass of wine each, then, leaving the empty glasses for the morning, made their way to bed. Brenda was almost half way between periods, so the time was right. They undressed each other slowly and sensually, then slipped into bed together. There they lay, holding each other and gazing deeply into each other's eyes, interspersed with tender, gentle kisses. Those kisses grew in intensity and passion, until they felt inseparable, as if each were merely one half of the same person. Finally, they floated back to earth again, from the giddy heights of ecstasy, to find themselves still in each other's arms. They awoke the next morning, still in each other's arms. Brenda truly was a beautiful and amazing woman; an amazing companion, an amazing lover. At will, she could be tough as old rope, or soft as silk. From her complexion, it was obvious that at some point in her near ancestry she had had at least one Aboriginal relative, and this gave her a sallow, earthy beauty which, combined with a slender elegance, could not possibly be masked. She looked equally incredible whether she was wrapped in a ball gown, or was returning from a hike, with smears of dirt on her legs and face, hair everywhere. Noah, one wedding anniversary, jokingly gave her a supplementary present of a potato sack, suggesting she try it on. Just for the sake of it, she did, and she was absolutely breathtaking. The potato sack was not on her for long, but, sadly, there were still no children. The following afternoon, Noah was not on duty, so he announced he was going out again, to walk The Old Coast Road. "You coming?" he asked, hoping the reply would be, "No." This was unusual, as they both enjoyed walking together. Today, however, he wanted to be alone, because the route he intended to take was one he only used when she was not with him. There was no way Brenda would agree to trespass on private land, and even less chance that she would agree to explore an unknown tunnel. "No, it's just the way I'm standing." "I wondered what you were doing." Brenda walked over to him and pretended to punch him in the stomach. "Things to do," she said, "Some other time, yeah?" "Yeah." Noah fetched a small backpack and loaded two water bottles from the fridge, then threw in a sandwich and an apple, just for show. "Why the rucksack?" Brenda quizzed. "You don't usually take luggage unless you have to. I thought you preferred travelling light." "Extra water," he replied, "I got a bit dehydrated yesterday." "Told you," she taunted. "But it's not as hot today. You should be fine." "Nevertheless, better safe than sorry." Brenda shrugged and Noah hurried into the hall towards the front door, wanting to get there before she had a chance to follow him. The real reason he was taking a backpack was to conceal a torch, which he quickly collected, having surreptitiously positioned it there earlier, and threw into the pack, not particularly caring how badly it squashed the sandwich. By the time Brenda had caught up, he had closed the fastenings, and was swinging it over his shoulder. Brenda affectionately put her hands on his shoulders. Standing on tiptoe, she was the same height as him, so their faces were level as they kissed. She stepped down, and this time he pulled her close and kissed her again, this time her face slightly upturned. Compared to her sultry olive skin, deep brown hair and eyes, Noah was pale skinned, though tanned, and had blond hair and blue eyes. At just over 180 cm, he stood five or six centimetres taller than his wife. He had a certain rugged handsomeness and, although he was no classic Adonis, in Brenda's eyes he was a gorgeous hunk. "Slater babe." "I'll be in the garden probably." The garden, particularly the front, was one of Brenda's passions. She could spend hours in the pursuit of perfection, as she had done ever since the day they moved in, having fallen in love with the house, and the white fence surrounding it, at first sight. Noah pulled the front door behind him, and set off. Twenty minutes later, he was passing the estate, at the point where he usually scaled the fence. He searched around a bit, finally selecting a place to climb. He always tried to use a different spot, for fear of trampling the vegetation to the extent that it began to look like a path, which would be a give-away that someone was in the habit of trespassing. His choice made, he easily slipped over and into the woodland. There was very little chance of being spotted, as he would not easily be seen from the road, and the gamekeeper rarely, if at all, came as far out from the centre of the reserve. The sun was not as strong as it had been yesterday, exactly as Brenda had said, so the walk through the trees was a pleasant one. Being vaguely familiar with the lie of the land by now, he had little difficulty in finding the route he had previously followed. Within a few minutes, he was standing at the entrance to the tunnel. The backpack he laid on the ground just inside the entrance, first taking a drink of water, then switching on the torch. He took only a step or two before changing his mind and returning to lift his pack. If he stumbled and injured himself, it would be better to have the water and food close at hand. He slung it over his shoulder and pressed on. As Noah proceeded further he began to experience the same unusual sensations as before. The waistband of his walking pants began to feel slack and the legs felt looser, wider, around him. He took a hold of them with his free hand, as they felt as if they were about to fall. His shirt was becoming so large on him that the cuffs were over the ends of his fingers and getting in the way. Now worried, he decided to abandon the adventure. Something happening he was unable to explain: not good. Time to go back. As he retreated, he could feel his clothes tightening around him. He had to adjust them because they had slipped out of position, but by the time he had reached the entrance, everything was normal again. Whatever had happened as he was passing through, it was not permanent. He guessed, half hoping, that it would be safe to go all the way to the opening he could see at the far side. This time, he held the top of his trousers from the outset, having first stripped off his shirt and stowed it in his pack. His other hand pointing the way with the torch, the rucksack bumping against him lower and lower with each step, he resolved to walk all the way through. As he expected, his clothes again began to loosen. He steeled himself and continued. He very quickly got into trouble again, and before he had gone much further, had to use both hands to pull his trousers up, gathering as much of the excess material as he could. This task was not made any easier by the fact that the hand holding them appeared to be getting smaller. That, he now knew for certain, was what was happening. The torch felt much bigger, and slightly heavier. The hand holding it was definitely changed, easily seen as the gloom receded on the approach to the opening. It was now clear that something impossible was indeed happening; the tunnel, somehow was making him younger. He was very possibly going to exit the passageway as a much younger man. No, he thought to himself, raising his torch arm and peering closely at it. He had almost no body hair, and what he had was too fine. It looked like he was going to emerge as a young boy. The thought suddenly flashed through his mind that perhaps he had found the secret of eternal youth. If he could walk just a little into the tunnel, enough to make himself, say, a week younger, he could return at regular intervals and never grow old. No, he thought again. He could only leave at one end or the other, so he was stuck with either his own age, or whatever the passageway made of him. Finally, there it was. The exit. The rucksack slid to the ground and the torch dropped onto it. The hand with the trouser leg gathered in it was beginning to ache and it was a relief to let go. The trousers immediately fell, landing on the ground with a soft flump. Noah stared down, mouth agape, eyes wide open, unable to believe what they were seeing. Emerging from the tunnel as a young boy was not what was going to happen. Young, yes, but under no circumstances could Noah describe herself as a boy. **** Noah's knees felt weak. Her legs gave way and she landed on the ground which, thankfully, was earth, not rock. For some time, all she was able to do was gape at herself in disbelief. Once her hand made the slightest of touches before snapping back in fright. She was sweating; her arms when she felt them were clammy, but also slightly cold. She recognised the signs immediately. Shock. Clinical shock. Her medical expertise provided her with a diagnosis. Her reaction was similar to surgical shock, where blood loss and damage to the nervous system cause psychological trauma. It was not simply that she had experienced the loss of visible parts of her body; the problem ran much deeper. Signals from sensory nerves that she had always felt, and had learnt to ignore, were now gone, replaced with sensations she did not know how to cope with. Motor nerves serving the male anatomy had been taken from her; she was no longer able to induce any movement in that part of her body. To try and to fail was one thing, but Noah was no longer able to make even an attempt. Her expertise also told her the best thing to do. She stayed still, closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply and slowly, in through her nose and out through her mouth. At length, she began to feel more calm, and decided to open her eyes and look around. First, she took a bottle from her pack and drank. Hot, sweet tea would have been better, but water would have to do. She spilt a little as she took the bottle out of her mouth and it ran the length of her body, dropping onto the ground. Even that felt different. Finally, she took one deep breath and rose to her feet. She still felt unsteady, but quickly gained her balance. Walking to the opening was the next surprise; she was amazed at how different her body felt when it moved; how light and agile it was compared to a man's larger, lumbering form; how much more fluidity there was to the movement of her lower limbs, due to the changes to her lower abdomen. The trees outside looked the same as the other end, a mixture of Ash and Poinciana. Carefully and timidly she edged forwards, peering out carefully, making sure there was no-one there. She was completely alone. She crept, still cautiously, still afraid, out of the mouth of the cave and looked around. Suddenly, her heart leapt in renewed shock. She had left the tunnel. What if she turned around to see nothing behind her? What if the tunnel, now that she had passed through it, had vanished, leaving her stranded: a young girl, naked and alone, in an unknown place? Slowly, dreading what she might find, she turned and almost burst into tears of relief when she saw the gaping darkness behind her, her clothes and backpack still visible just inside the opening. Noah sighed deeply. Now, feeling slightly more confident, she walked further, all the time nagging herself not to let the cave out of sight. It only needed a few steps, taken slowly with a glance over her shoulder after each one, to bring the fence into view, and beyond that, The Old Coast Road. That was as far as she dared to venture: it would be just her luck if she reached the fence at exactly the same time as someone walked past. Noah walked back to the mouth of the tunnel, then turned and looked around. There was nothing there except the forest, exactly as expected, so nothing seemed to have changed with respect to the environment around her. However, with nothing to wear, or at least, nothing that would fit her, she had no option but to return without further exploration. She lifted the bundle of clothes, put what she could into the backpack and, carrying the rest, made her way back through again. It was something of a relief to arrive at the other end of the tunnel as a man. As he walked, he had been aware of gaining height and bulk, a lengthening stride, and of the changes to his physique. With a huge sigh of gratitude, he dressed and made his way back to the road. The first thing he did was continue on his original route, walking as far as he guessed to be the length of the passage, then jumped over the fence. After a few moments, almost within sight of the road, he found the tunnel from which he had emerged as a girl. There were signs of the ground having been disturbed by her feet, especially inside the cave, and where she had collapsed in shock. There was nothing else to be done, so he retraced his steps to the road and walked on a little further, not wanting to return home after an unexpectedly short absence. As he made his way back, he walked past the estate slowly and thoughtfully, hardly taking his eyes off the trees beyond the fence. He arrived home to find Brenda in the front garden, weeding. She looked up and smiled. "Hungry?" she said. "You bet! I'll cook." "It's okay. I'm nearly done here." "Take your time. Let me get on with it." Noah prepared fish, some potatoes and vegetables and they settled down at the dining table, chatting as they ate. Afterwards, they retired to the living room for a while, putting on the radio as usual, and sipping slowly at a little more of the white wine they had opened the previous evening. "Mmm, nice, this one," Brenda purred, taking a second, then a third, sip. "Yeah, I like it too. Must be a good one, 'cause I usually prefer red." "Typical, isn't it? Can't afford to get legless while we're trying, and that's when you decide to come up with plonk I really like. Thanks, mate." "That's the way the cookie crumbles, I reckon." "It is for me. Once you've knocked me up, you can go and get plastered any time you like. I suppose I'd better make the most of this while I'm still allowed a drink." Noah kissed her. "I might have a cold one or two, but I won't rub it in," he said. "Good," she replied, "because beer's for drinking, not rubbing in." They left their glasses as before and went upstairs. Again, they undressed each other and climbed into bed, their lovemaking building up slowly, as it always did. This time, Noah was greeted by a pleasant surprise. He found himself more conscious of Brenda than ever before, more aware of her body and its form. He realised that, although he had barely scratched the surface, he could appreciate a tiny bit what it was like for her, and it made him feel closer to her than ever before. In the morning, Noah lay in bed while Brenda showered. He had one or two consultations at the hospital that day, but not until late morning, so he let his wife go first. He stared into space, thinking about the previous afternoon, and the impossible experience in the tunnel, that had left him dumbfounded and incredulous. It was not an experience he would normally have wanted to repeat, except for one thing that he was unable to get out of his head. He was amazed at how incredibly close he felt to the woman in his life, and it caused one particular thought to take hold. He, Dr. Noah Campbell, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, knew virtually everything there was to know about the female reproductive system, except for one thing: what it is like to live with. What it feels like from the inside. Chapter 2. Into the Unknown Noah's appointments were completed, and he was in his office finishing off his paperwork. The last thing done, he sat back and let his mind wander. It was almost time for lunch, and after that he had been intending to go straight home, but now he began to adjust his plans. The girl had been much shorter than he; that was obvious (and to be expected), but at one end of the passageway, Noah had been himself, and, at the other, the girl. There was no common landmark against which he could judge his or her physique. If only she had thought to lift the trousers and hold them up against herself, that may now have provided him with a clue to her height. The shape of the cave could not be used as a gauge, being too rough and changeable from end to end, and neither he nor she had taken enough notice of the trees and shrubs around the mouth to be able to make a comparison. She had not approached close enough to the fence to use that as a guide, either. There was one scant piece of information to work with. The only visible hair she had had was on her head, which indicated that she had not yet reached puberty. There were no other signs, so he calculated that, in this day and age, that should put her at around eleven years old. He picked up his phone and sent Brenda a text. "Going to Stockland after lunch. Want anything?" Within seconds, her reply came back, "Just you. Dont b l8." "You don't need any knickers then." "Get stuffed." "That's your job." "Lol." "Stuffed," is also slang for, "Pregnant." It was a bitter-sweet exchange of humour. Noah wolfed something down as quickly as possible, almost grabbing the first pre-plated meal he saw in the refectory, then dashed back to his office. He sent one or two overdue email messages, finished off one last paper form that had appeared in his in-tray and headed to the car park. Stockland Shopping Centre was in the middle of Rockhampton, just north of the Fitzroy River. He arrived about half past two and immediately began to browse through the children's departments of fashion outlets. After about twenty minutes, he found something suitable and was holding it at arm's length, considering it. "It's not your colour." An assistant was standing nearby and had spotted him looking at the dress. He smiled disarmingly and her eyes twinkled in return. "I'll need to lose a few kilos, too." The girl laughed. "Who's it for?" "My niece. It's her birthday next week." "So you're not married, then?" "What makes you think that?" "You are? And your wife trusts you to choose a dress for a ..." She took hold of the collar and turned it to let herself read the label, "An eleven-year-old girl? I'm impressed." "Thank you. I can but try." "What colour's her hair?" Noah thought for a moment, trying to recall what her hair had looked like, when the girl had lowered her head to look down. Then he replied, "Light brown, kind of dirty blonde." "So which is it? Light brown or dirty blonde?" Noah looked confused. The assistant gave him a perhaps-I-was-too-quick- in-being-impressed kind of look, but laced through with a kind, indulgent smile. "Here," she said, flicking through coat-hangers on one of the rails. She pulled one out, dragging some light blue fabric behind it, and held it against herself. Her hair was similar to the colour Noah's had become, and the dress looked quite good against her. She had blue eyes, and although he could not possibly know what colour the girl's were, he was aware that, statistically, they were likely also to be blue. He looked at the dress appreciatively and gained, in that moment, a tiny spark of empathy for the importance women place on colour. "That should suit her," she said. "She'll look gorgeous in that, whether she's light brown, dirty blonde, ash brown, dark blonde, strawberry bl..." "Okay, I get it," Noah interrupted, laughing. "Thank you." "You're welcome. Hope to see you again." After the dress, Noah had three more things to look for: underwear, socks and shoes. All were easy, with his estimate of eleven years to guide him. The only thing needing any real thought being the shoes, which would have to suitable for walking along The Old Coast Road. Even Noah, though, could tell the difference between girls' dress shoes and girls' walking shoes. That done, his next stop was a camping shop. His own clothes would have to be left in the cave, and he did not want them disturbed or damaged, should any wildlife come across them. He bought a plastic storage box with a clip-on lid. The assistant assured him it would store clothes safely for years. There was only one thing left to do: he needed an excuse for visiting the shopping centre. He settled for a new drill. **** When Noah neared the house, he stopped, got out of the car, and walked to the bend. From there he had a clear view, and there was no sign of Brenda in the garden. In that case, she would most likely be at the back of the house, so there was very little chance of his car being seen and recognised. Returning to the driving seat, he passed the house and carried on, until he reached his usual spot. He jumped quickly out of the car, took the storage box from the boot and carried it and its contents, the girl's clothes, to the mouth of the cave. On the return journey, he drove past and, once around the next bend, turned the car and drove home from the correct direction. If Brenda had happened to have seen him, he could always bluff his way out of it by saying it must have been a similar car, and now you mention it, he thinks he remembers seeing one just like his going the other way. That afternoon Brenda decided to walk with him, so the storage box remained untouched. The same happened on the next day, and the day after that. With other priorities and aspects of their lives, and a spell of rain, it was a full ten days before Noah eventually had the chance to walk The Old Coast Road alone. When the day came, Noah set off with just a single water bottle. He did not bother to take a rucksack, as, having explored the tunnel once or twice now, he was confident he could pass through it safely, without risk of stumbling. There was, therefore, no need to risk being caught in possession of a torch. He scaled the fence and made his way to the cave mouth. Knowing, this time, exactly what was about to happen to him, his heart was in his mouth and his hands shook slightly as he released the clips on the box. He removed the dress and the shoes, a pair of socks, then opened the underwear packet and took out one pair, laying everything carefully at one side. He then stripped, placing his male clothes into the storage box, and clipped it shut. Lifting the female garments, he stood and walked forwards carefully. Maybe, he thought, he ought to have brought a torch after all, because then he would have been able to watch himself change as he made his way through. Perhaps next time, if there ever were a next time. A little before she reached the far end, Noah was able to look down at herself and see she was fully formed. She stopped just inside the opening, swayed, and once more had to sit down before she fell. Even although she had known what to expect, the shock of becoming female was still severely unsettling and so she closed her eyes and repeated the breathing exercises that had calmed her before. She then stood and dusted herself off, noting that she had recovered significantly more quickly this time. She then looked down at the pile of clothes at her feet. First, she lifted the knickers and began to step into them, marvelling at the different feelings she got from this body when she moved it. However, she only got them a little past her knees before she stopped and frowned, puzzled. They were too tight, and there was no way she would be able to pull them on properly. She discarded them and lifted the dress. It was little different. Holding it over her head and trying to put her arms into it told her immediately it was too small. It was not excessively so, due to her slim build, but would certainly not go on comfortably and would perhaps tear; she whipped it over her head again and held it against her body. Far too short. She threw it onto the ground, folded her arms, and pouted in frustration. She was desperate to explore the woodland, there being something she was keen to discover, but was unwilling to venture outside in the nude. She thought for a few moments then, stooping to lift the clothes on the ground beside her, she made her way back through the tunnel again. Noah opened the box and retrieved his shirt, exchanging it for the girl's clothes. He thrust his arms into the sleeves as he walked, and by the time the girl had reached the far side, her fingers had fastened the final button. The shirt hung almost comically from her frame, but she was now covered, and felt able to leave the cave. The first thing she did was turn towards the road. She crept slowly towards it, still not wanting anyone to spot her. At the fence, she leant out and looked right and left along the road. It looked completely as expected. Then she turned, walked past the cave mouth, and made her way back, towards (as far as she could tell) the other end of the tunnel. It was less than five minutes before she came across it; there, just inside, was the storage box. Inside, the remainder of her male clothes, and also the dress and other items she had bought in Rockhampton. She sat down on top of the box and thought. It would seem she had not been transported into some parallel world, as she had initially wondered might be the case. She now believed that tunnel had changed her, and only her, leaving the rest of the world intact. She could still not prove that, however, without the ability to explore a little further than she had thus far been able to go. Not dressed like this. The only option was to try again. She began to make her way back, when she had a sudden thought. Finding a stone, she stood against the wall at the entrance and used it to mark her height, then hit it with the stone a few times to reinforce it. She then scampered back through the trees to the other cave mouth and walked through. Noah arrived already wearing his shirt. He donned the remainder of his own clothes, folded up the girl's, and placed them inside the box. He then examined the wall where the girl had marked her height, and estimated it to be about twenty centimetres shorter than himself. Stopping briefly to satisfy himself that the box was properly secured, he left it waiting to be collected at the next possible opportunity. **** It was another week before Noah was able to collect the storage box and put it into the boot of the car. He brought a measuring tape this time, and used it to find the height of the mark the girl had made. One hundred and fifty-eight centimetres. About twenty centimetres shorter than himself. That was pretty much what he had estimated. He drove to the hospital. During lunch time, he was able to sit and mull things over in his mind. A hundred and fifty-eight? How could a girl that age be so tall? It was unusual, but not impossible, though. Not to worry. He knew, from basic physiology, that a girl of thirteen to fourteen years old would be about that height, so he would return to Stockland and exchange the dress and shoes for their age fourteen equivalent, if they were available in that size. His estimation was designed to err on the large side, and was the reason he had chosen a dress in the first place, as it (and particularly a loose summer dress) would be far more forgiving when oversized. Then it struck him. The girl was not eleven years old at all, and she was probably no taller than average for her age; it was likely that she was thirteen or fourteen years old. He had not taken into account the fact that in modern times children, particularly girls, were reaching puberty earlier than they used to; nowadays a girl could begin puberty at eleven or twelve, whereas a hundred years ago, it would have been more like thirteen or fourteen; a phenomenon that was usually blamed on junk food and childhood obesity. The girl probably had a healthy lifestyle; good exercise, a healthy diet with whole and balanced foods, making her physical development run a much more natural course. The drill he had brought with him under pretence that it was faulty and needed to be exchanged. On the way home, he made another detour to the fashion outlet and was delighted (and relieved) to find the same dress, fourteen to fifteen age, which he was allowed to exchange. The shoes he also exchanged for a bigger size, and he bought larger underwear and socks. It was two days before he managed to deliver the storage box to the cave, and then several more before he could return to make use of its contents. **** "Not for me, thanks." "No? Okay." "I've decided not to drink any more. Not until I'm pregnant." Noah looked sideways at Brenda and she burst out laughing when she realised when she had said. "I've decided that's the new me," she giggled. "Get myself knocked up, then start boozing." She leant against him and looked up to meet his eyes. "Sorry," she said sadly, "shouldn't even joke about stuff like that, should I?" Noah kissed her affectionately on the top of her head. They sat a little while longer, sipping at water. Noah decided it would be better to forgo alcohol himself for the time being; it would do his sperm quality no harm at all, and would also support Brenda. They looked at each other, deciding wordlessly that it was time to go to bed. Brenda's ovulation cycle had reached her fertile phase. Her face asked him, "Will we ever have a baby?" His replied, "We'll never give up hope." Noah and Brenda awoke the next morning at around six; it was Noah's fault, as he had to be at the hospital reasonably early. She, disturbed by his alarm, stretched and flexed her free arm and leg. It was a luxurious feeling, her softness squirming against him, and he nearly killed the alarm and turned back towards her. Instead, reluctantly, he backed away out of the bed, tucked the covers around her, and kissed her hair in response to the contented purr she made. They had fallen asleep almost straight away after making love, so neither were wearing anything, and Noah had to struggle against his feelings to avoid climbing straight back into bed again. Today was a longer schedule than usual, and there was still much to do after lunch. It was about half past three when Noah eventually made it home to find Brenda in the front garden, preparing to start. When he announced he was going to take his first walk in a few days, she declined to go with him. "This is getting into a total mess. Some other time, maybe." Noah set off on his own. This was his chance to explore properly. It was ironic, he thought as he walked, that he and Brenda were desperately trying to start a family; his intention was to return tonight, take her to bed and play his part in doing exactly that, but what was he in the process of doing right now? Walking through that tunnel, and making himself temporarily incapable of fulfilling his and his wife's dearest wish! The opening loomed in front of him and he hesitated, doubtful of whether he should continue at all. It was a minute or two before he finally decided to go on, and it was only a thirst for discovery and for empathy that made up his mind. If anything, he was even more nervous, because this time he fully expected to be able to venture onto the road ... perhaps explore a part of the town ... perhaps interact with someone ... as a female. He clicked open the catches and opened the lid. There, inside, was the blue summer dress he had brought here just over a week ago. He took a deep breath, lifted out what he needed, and began to strip, folding his own clothes and placing them inside. The catches snapped into place with an ominous thud and Noah took hold of the dress, shoes, underwear, socks, and carefully gathered them into a bundle that he thought the girl would be able to carry without dropping once his arms had shrunk to become hers. By the time she reached the far end of the tunnel, she quite literally had her arms full. Laying down her bundle, she looked at herself and once more was taken by a, brief this time, sense of distress and guilt. She momentarily considered turning for home and going back to Brenda, and forgetting all about her dubious adventure. No. She was here now, so why not just get on with it? She lifted the knickers and tried them; they fit perfectly. The dress slipped over her head and fluttered around her body as if it had been specifically tailored with her in mind. In a flash, she had on the socks and shoes and was stepping, tentatively, from the cave into the sunlight. The dress was a surprise. It floated around her as she moved, and as the gentle breeze pushed at it. It crept between her legs at times, and swept against her. Inside it, she had an incredible sense of complete freedom of movement. Then she realised that perhaps it was not the practical choice she had thought. She had reached the fence. Climbing needed care. She had to hitch the skirting up to avoid catching her foot in the hem and, once over, could not simply jump to the ground the way she had always done as a man. The dress might catch on the fence and tear as she dropped, so it was necessary to gather it around herself once more. She stepped down and looked around her. Straight ahead, along The Old Coast Road, was Wollonga and home. It was impossible to reach the town without first passing her own house, and when she did, she spotted Brenda still in the garden. Noah began to walk tentatively past, unsure whether she should speak to her wife, or carry on and ignore her. The decision was taken out of her hands when Brenda looked up and smiled. "Hello," she said, smiling broadly. Noah smiled nervously in return, unsure whether to speak or turn and run. "H... hi," she replied hesitatingly, shocked to hear such a high voice coming out of her own mouth. "Are you okay?" Brenda asked. "You're not lost or anything, are you?" "No, I'm fine. I was just having a walk and I saw your garden. It's lovely." "Thanks. It's very nice of you to say so. You're not from around here, are you? Obviously." Now there was a question. The correct answer, of course, was, "Yes," but now that she had finally heard her own voice utter a long sentence, she realised she had spoken in an English accent. Therefore her answer was going to have to be, "No". However, the absolute truth would be completely ludicrous: "Yes. In fact, I live here. I'm your husband. I slept with you last night, after we made love. We're trying to have a baby together." "No," she replied. That was the point Noah realised what an idiot she had been. What on earth had she been thinking? Here she was, standing in front of the woman she loved, the person she loved more than anyone else in the world, and Brenda did not know her from Adam. Nor from Eve, which at that moment would be more appropriate. The beautiful thing that she and Brenda were trying to do together was, at that moment, impossible, thanks to her own stupidity, and it was imperative that it should be put right immediately. An overwhelming sense of wrongness swept over her and she decided, there and then, that she would not squander one moment more of Noah's life than she could possibly avoid. She would go to the tunnel as quickly as she could and return to her wife's arms. "My name's Brenda. What's yours?" "Oh, er ... Jennifer," said Noah, stammering the first girl's name that came into her head. She began to move slowly, edging in the direction of the estate, but Brenda spoke again, making her stop in uncertainty, unsure how to react. "Wollonga is that way." "Yeah, but I just realised I lost something. I need to go and get it back." "Oh, what? Can I help you?" "There will be plenty you can do later," Noah thought to herself. "No, thanks, I'll be fine," she said aloud. At that point, Noah and Brenda both turned their heads at the sound of a car horn. A small silver car, which had seconds earlier rounded the bend, squealed to a halt a few metres short of the house and a woman jumped out of the near side. "Sarah!" she cried, looking directly at Noah. "There you are, darling! We were wondering where you'd got to." The woman's voice matched the accent Noah had heard from her own mouth, so she put two and two together, and guessed she was supposed to be this woman's daughter. "This is impossible," she thought. Then the breeze caught her dress and she felt it flap gently against her bare legs. "This is entirely possible," she corrected herself. That, of course, meant her name was Sarah. She turned and gave Brenda an embarrassed smile, shrugging her shoulders. "I always wanted to be called Jennifer," she explained sheepishly. She was lying. She wanted to be called Noah, not Jennifer, and not Sarah either, although she seemed to be stuck with that for the time being. Brenda grinned. "No worries," she replied. "See ya, Jen!" Sarah hesitated. "Well, don't just stand there gawking," her mother said, "come on." "Bye," Sarah called uncertainly, over her shoulder and walked towards the car, unable to think of any other course of action. There was someone sitting in the rear seat on that side, so she walked around, feeling an affectionate hand on her back as she passed the woman. She opened the door and jumped in, behind the driver, a man, and with the other person, a boy, beside her. It would be reasonable to assume they were her father and brother. The boy looked to be two or three years younger than her. "Who was that you were talking to?" the woman asked once she had closed her door. "Oh, just the lady who lives in that house. I stopped to admire her ... her ... garden. It's lovely." The car pulled off. Sarah asked, "Where are we going?" "What's got into you?" her mother replied, looking over her shoulder. "You know we're going to have a run down to the coast and try to find a beach." "We're not, are ... oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot. Em ... I could walk, if you like." "Don't be silly, darling," the woman said. "It would be much nicer to go together, as a family." Sarah faintly heard two things in that moment. Her mother looked at the man in the driver's seat and whispered, "Adolescence, here we come." The boy next to her muttered something to himself; something that sounded suspiciously like, "Girls are stupid." She hardly noticed either. They had reached the estate and she was gazing forlornly at the trees as they rushed helplessly past her. The car stopped and everyone else was far more keen to get out than Sarah was. They were parked at the edge of the road, just beside a short path leading to a golden beach, deserted, and fairly small. Within the hour, Sarah's brother was splashing in the water, her father was lying on a towel, apparently asleep, and she and her mother were sitting together, at the point where grass met sand, holding their skirts around their legs against the breeze. "A year or two ago," Sarah's mother said sentimentally, "you'd have been stripped off and playing in the water, just like Colin. It's a strange feeling." "What is?" Sarah asked, intrigued. Her mother laughed. "Watching your children grow up," she replied. "I don't know whether to be happy that you're turning into an adult, or sad that you're not my little girl any more." Sarah said nothing. There were a hundred ways she could have answered, but not a single one would have been appropriate. "I know it sound a bit daft, Sarah. It's difficult to explain. You'll understand what I mean some day, when you're in my shoes." "No, I definitely won't," Sarah thought to herself, "though I hope Brenda will." They sat for a while, chatting more like close friends than parent and child. The conversation felt like it should be an easy, open one, but for Sarah's inability to communicate much. This was, in fact, due to the fact she was almost completely ignorant about herself, but fortunately was taken by her mother to be a teenager's rebellious, independent streak, and a belief that her private affairs were none of her parents' business. Fortunately, her mother seemed to know all of Sarah's friends reasonably well, as well as most of their families, so it turned out to be easy for her to allow herself to be guided through the conversation, learning a great deal more than she told. She found she liked her mother immensely. She had a warm, pleasant personality and when she spoke about others, it was obvious that she genuinely cared about them. As a boy, conversations between her and her father had tended to centre on toys or other objects, and when they did discuss Noah's friends, were more about who could beat whom at various sports or other competitive pursuits. It was a surprise, though a pleasant one, to discover how different a mother-daughter relationship was. They talked not about things, but mainly about people, how they felt and, if they were aware of any problems, about whether they could do anything to help. Sarah was quite amazed; her eyes had been opened very wide indeed. She sat thoughtfully for a while, and her mother turned and gave the man dozing next to her a sharp, playful prod in the ribs, making him gasp and sit up with a start, before he jokingly grabber her wrists to stop her executing her threat of tickling him. Sarah heard her call him Pat, which she presumed was short for Patrick. Her name was Amanda, but her father always not only said her name in full, but seemed to savour it, as if he were uttering the most beautiful sound in the world. Now that Sarah had had a long talk with her mother, which had brought with it the chance to have a close look at her face, she could understand the reason for that. She truly deserved her name, and the way her husband said it. Sarah had the same hair, light brown, dirty blonde, ash brown ... whatever ... and presumably the same blue eyes and heart- shaped face. She found herself wondering whether she herself would look as lovely in a mirror as her mother did. "Never going to find the answer to that one," she thought. Amanda called Colin, and announced, as Sarah already knew from her parents' conversation, that it was time to go. Finally, the moment she had been waiting for had arrived. "Do I have time to walk back?" "Not unless you want to go hungry," Amanda laughed in response. "The restaurant's booked for half past six, and you and I need time to get ready." "But ..." "Goats butt. Ladies dress for dinner." **** Sarah had to hang back when the car reached their apartment and everyone else got out, not wanting to give herself away. She followed at the rear, allowing everyone else to show her the correct entrance, then had the brainwave of asking her mother to help her choose something to wear, having first positioned herself so that Amanda would unthinkingly lead the way and show her which room was hers. She made a pretence of looking casually at a few papers on the coffee table. One was an envelope addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Hampshire. Now she knew her own name. Sarah Hampshire. "Surely not!" her mother said as Sarah laid a pair of jeans on the bed. "We're going to a restaurant, not a potato farm. Here, this will be more like it." She opened the wardrobe and held up a lilac-coloured dress, then switched it with the jeans, which she put back into the drawer. Sarah stared at the dress in discomfort. It was far too short; she doubted it would even hide her knees. How could she argue the point, though? A quarrel between mother and daughter about short skirts was supposed to be the other way round. "Are you taking a shower?" "Absolutely no way on this earth," Sarah thought. "It's okay. I had one this morning," she said aloud. Just getting dressed would be bad enough. Amanda left the room and her daughter followed her. There was a nervous expression on her face. "Are you all right?" "I, em, I was ... just going to the bathroom." "Oh, okay, you're first in the queue, then." Amanda said, smiling. She opened the bathroom door, turned, and grinned in triumph as she pushed it shut. Being beaten to it was actually a stroke of luck, Sarah thought, because she had had no idea at all where the bathroom was. When her mother emerged, two or three minutes later, and held the door open, she was surprised to see that Sarah's face was set and she looked nervous. "Are you all right?" she asked, slightly concerned. "There's nothing wrong, is there?" "If you only knew," Sarah thought to herself, but said nothing. She attempted to smile at her mother as she passed, but had no idea how successful she was. When she opened the door to leave, Amanda was still waiting outside. "Are you sure you're okay?" she said. "You look like there's something you're not very pleased about." "I'm fine," Sarah replied, making for the safety of her own room as quickly as she could. The restaurant was only a few minutes from the apartment, and they walked. All the way there, and especially upon entering, Sarah felt ill at ease with her attire. Noah had not been a great fan of shorts, and as Sarah, found she also disliked her knees being exposed. Her feelings were vindicated because of the way she was stared at by every man or boy they met, either while walking, or in the restaurant. When first spotting her, their eyes would immediately dart to her legs, before homing in on her chest, but upon discovering that to be completely flat, would look away in disinterest and not bother even to glance at her again. There was some respite once they were seated. The family circle seemed to shield her, and soon she relaxed and began to enjoy herself, chatting to her parents. Colin, though, continued to regard her with mild contempt, seemingly thinking she was only a stupid girl. He even said so at one point, but (unfortunately, to Sarah's mind) quietly enough that only she could hear him. Sarah was now left with one big problem. Once they were back in their apartment, her father locked the door and settled down to watch cricket highlights on the television, the remote control in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. Her mother read a book. Colin was sent to bed at half past ten and she at eleven. Her mother told her she would look in shortly, which made her realise she was going to have to change. She found the summer dress she had worn that afternoon, and hid it, along with socks and shoes, under the bed; she stripped down to her underwear and pulled a night-dress over her head, then crawled under the covers. After the events of that day, she felt quite fatigued and was deadly afraid she would fall asleep, only to wake in the morning and be faced with another day in Sarah's body. She lay facing down, with her elbows supporting her weight, an uncomfortable position that helped her to avoid becoming too relaxed, but which also caused her to discover there was absolutely no discomfort at all from her lower body, when lying on her front. After a few minutes, she heard the door open and she slipped down onto her side, pretending to be almost asleep. She felt her mother tuck the bedclothes around her and she feigned a sleepy, "Night, Mum," then waited for silence. After about two minutes, again spent on her elbows, she jumped quickly out of bed. Slipping off the night-dress, she replaced it in the drawer and dressed, except for her shoes, which she left where they were. She then got back in, fully clothed, and read by torchlight. Finally, after she had begun to think it was never going to happen, Sarah heard the sounds that told her that her parents were retiring. She switched off the torch and hid it and the book, under the covers, which she pulled up. She lay on her side, her eyes closed; light filled the room and then her mother laid her hand on her shoulder and kissed her forehead. Sarah did not move, but responded with a quiet, "Mmm." The door closed. She sat up and waited, after a minute or two the small line of light under her bedroom door disappeared. She leapt out of bed and put on her shoes. Carefully opening her door, she peered through. There was no-one about and no signs of life from any of the other rooms. She crept to the front door. It had a mortice lock, but there was also a latch, which was closed. To her relief, the mortice turned without a sound. Hoping against hope there was no alarm, she slowly turned the thumbwheel to a welcome silence. One more thing to do, and this time it would be impossible to avoid making a noise. Click. She turned and ran from the door, hoping no-one had heard the latch closing. Running as a girl felt very different; her arms did not naturally assist her as much, and her pelvic shape angled her thigh bones to bring her knees closer together. She felt more feminine when she ran than when she walked. The apartment was on the first floor, so she had to use the stairs. Her rapid descent made her dress rise slightly, but she had no time to bother. It was only a single flight, after all, and there was no-one around. She hoped. The outside door of the block was also a latch, and seconds later, she was free. The walk back to The Old Coast Road turned out to be a very unpleasant experience: it was well after midnight and while the streets seemed to be deserted, she could still hear raised voices occasionally. It was impossible to tell from which direction the sounds were coming, so she walked tentatively, half expecting at every turn that she would be confronted by a dark shadow. Even after she had cleared the buildings, she still imagined that someone could step out from behind a tree. Walking alone at night as a female made her feel very vulnerable indeed. Her house had one light visible downstairs, and both the bedroom and bathroom light on; she guessed that Brenda was still in the process of turning in. There was a reasonable chance of getting home before she did, but even if Brenda was in bed by the time Noah arrived, she was sure he would be welcome. Finally, she reached the estate and found the place to climb the fence. She kicked herself, thinking she should have brought her torch with her, because the night was dark, and in the trees it might be difficult to find the cave. She wandered into the woodland, panic beginning to rise in her breast, when at last she saw the dark outline of the hill, but too dark for the tunnel to be discernible, black against black. She had to feel her way, and almost fell flat on her face when her hand finally found emptiness. She stripped in the dark and carried her clothes into the tunnel. It was a treacherous walk, even more frightening than the streets, as at any moment she could stumble and hit her head; she began to imagine that perhaps a wild animal would pounce on her in the darkness. Her fears gradually subsided, though, as she felt her old strength returning, her stride becoming longer and firmer, and finally Noah kicked the storage box at the other end, almost falling over it. He was back. He was a man again. It took much longer to dress himself in such darkness, but very soon he was fumbling for the fence, and then scrambling over it before walking quickly, almost running, home. Brenda was asleep when he slipped into bed beside her, but she had only been dozing for a few minutes and she squirmed her way around to face him when he disturbed her, coming to straight away. She put her arms around him and pulled them together, almost dragging Noah on top of her. "You're late," she purred, "I missed you. What happened?" "Sorry, I had to go into the hospital." "How did you get there?" "Drove, as usual." "But you didn't take your car." "No, Ken gave me a lift. He's only just dropped me off again." "I didn't hear anything." "He insisted on stopping short of the house so we wouldn't wake you. I hadn't the heart to tell him that's exactly what I wanted to do." Brenda giggled, a delightful naughty laugh. Within seconds they were naked and holding each other passionately, their lovemaking both higher and deeper than ever before. They floated slowly back to earth, but when Noah began to turn away, she held on to him, her arms and legs tight around him and making him still lie over her. They stoked the fire of their mutual afterglow with what he had heard Brenda affectionately refer to as, "Afterplay." Finally, Noah lay on his back with Brenda curled up against his side, gently stroking his chest as she dropped off into a contented slumber. Sleep did not come easily to Noah that night. For a long time he lay awake, thinking. His main concern was not the bizarre events of that day; strangely enough it was guilt; the guilt he felt over the way he had so casually come up with his cover story, and his wife's innocence in swallowing it so readily. Words came to him. Words he had heard many years ago, and now returned to haunt him. Words, themselves racked with guilt, spoken by Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter: "It's awfully easy to lie when you know that you're trusted implicitly. So very easy, and so very degrading." Chapter 3. Flight Another two days passed; Noah and Brenda passed every possible moment together, with every single night spent in the pursuit of their hearts' desire. Brenda was in the shower. Noah was still in bed, staring at the ceiling and running over the calculations in his head. She was approaching the end of the fertile time of her cycle, so tonight may well be the final night on which she might conceive. Last night had been beautiful; Brenda had been soft and tender, but their lovemaking had not quite reached the intensity it had only two nights ago. Noah believed he understood why. The difference had been himself. In his passion, he had lifted Brenda along with him, to new heights they had not matched for years. That was the day he had been trapped as Sarah, living with the fear of being forced to spend the next day in her body too. That night he had been like a coiled-up spring, and it was Sarah, he believed, who had wound it. His energy had been renewed by the shock of meeting Brenda in such an impossible situation, and experiencing the frustration and helplessness of gazing on her beauty from the confines of Sarah's body, from the creeping sense of uneasiness and wrongness, and from gaining a determination to escape the subversion of her masculinity. Noah decided he would seek the same feelings, those that seemed to have propelled him, emotionally, towards Brenda like a slingshot. He reversed the promise he had made to himself and decided to become Sarah again. One more time. Later that day, he timed his departure from the hospital so that he would arrive in Wollonga at five o'clock. He intended to park the car on the outskirts and walk along The Old Coast Road, past his house, then return. As Sarah. Brenda usually spent an hour or so before dinner in the front garden, and she was in the habit of waiting until the day had cooled off a little, typically about half past five. That, as before, was when she was going to meet Sarah. The best place to leave his car was the street outside the apartment where the Hampshires were staying. It was a popular spot, parking being free, and so his car would not look out of place there. He was walking along the opposite side of the road when, as luck would have it, Patrick, Amanda and Colin exited the apartment block at the same moment he was passing. There had been a question in his mind for some time now; a question to which he had never expected to find an answer, but now he had been presented with an ideal and unexpected opportunity. "Hello!" he called, running across the road towards them, then asking, when he was but a few paces away. "How is Sarah?" All three looked puzzled. "I'm sorry," Amanda said, "do we know you?" "Oh, I ... em, I'm Dr. Hughes," Noah stuttered, trying to seem taken- aback. "Did I not treat your daughter, Sarah, for a sprained ankle?" "There must be some mistake," Patrick replied. "We don't have a daughter. Just our son." He laid his hand on Colin's shoulder and looked steadily at Noah. "I'm very sorry," Noah said. "Obviously I've mistaken you for someone else. Please forgive me." "No need to apologise," Patrick said and smiled. The four parted; Noah crossed the road and the others continued on their original course, chatting as they walked. The first few words of their conversation drifted across the road to him. "See you there." "Phone me from the taxi, and I'll get you a coffee." If only Noah had not been so preoccupied with his own thoughts at the time, he might have taken more notice of those words as they reached him. If only he had heard the clue. If only he had stopped to think why Sarah's father might need a taxi, when he was about to get into the little silver car. If only. Noah, though, was too busy with his own agenda to take any notice, and now he had extra information to process: the answer to something that had been bothering him for a while. As he had suspected, Sarah did not exist. There was no such person as Sarah Hampshire. Not until he walked through that tunnel. Brenda was already in the garden when he reached the house. She had obviously come out earlier than normal and was now presenting him with another problem. How was he going to get past without being seen? He considered walking through the woodland behind the house, but it was difficult terrain. Then, without warning everything came right again; Brenda, who had not yet begun to work in earnest, turned and walked back inside. Noah did not want to waste the opportunity, so he ran. It only took about fifteen seconds to make his way past and reach the trees just beyond, but it seemed like the longest fifteen seconds of his life. There he stopped and waited, breathing heavily, peering cautiously at the front door. As he had hoped, there was no sign of Brenda, so it was safe to assume she had not spotted him. Otherwise, by now, she would have come running out of the house calling his name, puzzled by the bizarre sight of her husband inexplicably sprinting past, and obviously trying not to be seen. He turned, relieved, his heart still thumping, and began the brisk twenty-minute walk to the cave, arriving agitated and trembling; almost half an hour had passed since he had sprinted past his own home, and he would normally have expected his heart rate and adrenaline levels to have subsided by now; they had not; if anything, his heart was beating faster and adrenaline making his hand shake harder; he was now even more nervous than he had been at the moment when he had stood, rooted to the spot, waiting in fear of his name being called. For some time - he was unable to tell how long - Noah stood in indecision, looking backwards and forwards between the direction of the house, and the mouth of the tunnel, his mind filled with doubt. Finally, after what could have been a minute, or an hour, or a day, he stepped decisively into the opening, unbuttoning his shirt as he did so. Minutes later, Sarah was carefully placing her clothes, folded, on the ground and selecting the first thing to pull on. An image of Brenda filled her head, followed by thoughts of the passion they would later share; beautiful thoughts that began by making her feel a wonderful thrill of anticipation, but very quickly transformed into a menacing distress that caused her to become dizzy and slightly nauseous. She staggered and had to crouch down to avoid losing her balance and falling. The notion of making love as a man had triggered a relapse of the shock that had almost made her pass out on her first change, as half of her mind tried to imagine something the other half was incapable of conceiving. Unexpectedly, though, the action of crouching helped to cure her. It overwhelmed her with a wave of physical sensations that swept over her, completely driving the impossible from her mind; the impossibility of standing taller than Brenda; the impossibility of sweeping her into her arms; the impossibility of feeling her softness against her; the impossibility of impregnation. It would be up to Brenda, not Sarah, to turn all of this on its head; to make her desire the things that had been taken from her, but were rightfully hers: masculinity, strength, potency, her wife's love. The desire to feel impossible sensations from parts of herself that she no longer possessed strove in vain with the alien sensations of physical reality. Desire gave way, overpowered by the material world, and with a few deep breaths, long and hard, she felt much more steady; she stood up and dressed, and then, as if nothing had been wrong at all, ran to the fence and strode as purposefully and as manfully as she could along the road home. Brenda was not there, and Sarah waited for a little while, looking over the fence; presently, she decided it would be wrong to hang around outside for too long; if her wife, unknown to her, spotted her from an upstairs window and wondered why an unknown girl was standing in front of her house, staring into her home, she might be offended; then any future conversation could become tainted and ineffective. Therefore she decided to walk around the corner, wait for a minute or so, then return. She did; Brenda, upon her return, was still not there. Sarah decided to take a wider circuit. It would not be a very good idea, she thought, to go near the apartment; she was right, certainly, but she was not right in the decision she did make, because even the elusive route she was taking was misguided and far more dangerous than she imagined. She should have walked back along The Old Coast Road, in the opposite direction to Wollonga, but already being on the this side of the house, she unthinkingly and unwisely crept into the fringes of the town. She had intended to walk along the first street she came to, then turn and come back the same way before taking The Old Coast Road again, but half way along, she met a woman walking the other way. The woman smiled pleasantly and Sarah unwisely spoke. "Hello, M... M... madam," she stammered. It sounded a little odd, but she had just about got away with it. She had almost made the mistake of greeting the woman with a confident, "Hello, Mrs. King," which would have been a ridiculous thing for thirteen-year-old Sarah Hampshire to say. Mrs. King was one of her patients and, earlier that day, had attended her clinic at the hospital. After such a close shave, Sarah was breathing heavily when she turned the corner, and not properly thinking her actions through. Having met Mrs. King, she was reluctant to go back by the same route, but the woman was walking slowly and Sarah was impatient, so she made the catastrophic decision to return via the next street. She should have been more careful: she should have peered cautiously around the corner first, ready to turn and run if need be, but instead, she blundered straight into the path of her mother. "Sarah! At last! Where on earth have you been? We've been looking everywhere for you." **** The apartment looked completely different this time. There were open suitcases visible in the bedrooms, the doors of which rooms were all open. There was one small case sitting on Sarah's bed. In the lounge, one of them sat on the coffee table, alongside four airline tickets. "You'd better get on with it," her mother said. "We don't want to be too late in bed." "Why?" Sarah replied in a small voice. "What are we ..." "Sarah Elizabeth Hampshire, you really do walk around with your head in the clouds, don't you?" came the exasperated response. "We're going home tomorrow. Why else would we be packing?" Dinner consisted of wholemeal sandwiches and apple juice, while Sarah's mother and father organised the putting of things into cases. She quickly threw everything into hers, without at all caring what kind of mess they would get into, since they were not really hers (and, in fact, their actual existence would seem to be in doubt, since Sarah herself would cease to exist once she walked back through the tunnel again). Her biggest problem was not so much a problem as a minor irritation, because she was now going to have to rethink all her plans, and as a result her return to Brenda was very probably going to be another late night. Once she and Colin had been ordered to their rooms and instructed to go to sleep, she sprang into action. There was a pink rucksack in the corner of the room, and in it she found what she was looking for: an iPhone; an older model, but perfectly good. Switching it on revealed the lock screen, with only the PIN deemed to be acceptable, and she swore under her breath. "Mum?" she called, a sudden hope inspiring her. "I can't remember the code for my phone." "I've got a note of it," came the reply. "Just a minute." Just a minute later, the phone was unlocked. There was no connection, so obviously Sarah did not have a roaming agreement, and presumably that was why the phone had been switched off all this time. That was unimportant; all she was concerned with was the alarm, and after a little thought, she set it for two o'clock. By then, her parents should have gone to bed, and she would slip out of the apartment and escape. The only downside was that she would again be walking home in the middle of the night. She remembered how frightened she had been the last time, and she was not looking forward to it in the slightest. Her dress was draped over a chair, and everything else ready for her to put on in a hurry, but this time she had not forgotten a torch, which was hidden under the bed. When her mother looked in and told her to go straight to sleep, she promised she would, then settled down to wait, watching the light creeping under her door and the occasional shadow, as people moved around outside from time to time. Too excited to be in danger of falling asleep, she looked at the phone regularly, growing more and more impatient with every second that passed, checking the time more and more often, aching for the chance of escape to present itself. Quarter past twelve. Half past twelve. Quarter to one. Still no sign of the light going out. Her door opened and there was a sudden click, flooding the room with painful brightness and making her look up in surprise. "Sarah!" her mother's voice said, "I'm sorry to wake you, darling, but you need to get up." Sarah pulled the phone from under her pillow in sudden panic. Had she fallen asleep and not heard the alarm? The screen told her it was five to one. "The taxi'll be here in about an hour," Amanda continued. "What?" Sarah slurred in reply. The sound was one of despair, but came over more like a sleepy confusion. "It's a five o'clock flight, remember? We need to be at the airport by three. Hurry up and get dressed." Her mother left, pulling the door behind her and Sarah stared at it in horror. No. No, no, no! She leapt out of bed and threw on her clothes. Her father was at the front door, arranging the cases ready to be moved. Her mother handed him a cup of coffee and he sat on one to drink it. Sarah prowled, keeping as close to the door as she could without making her intentions obvious. The chance to slip out unnoticed never arrived; there was always someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. The doorbell rang and the intercom announced the arrival of the taxi. This was her opportunity. Her father helped the taxi driver carry the first of the cases out, and she began to follow, but Amanda stopped her with a touch on her shoulder. "Sarah," she said, "why on earth did you decide to wear a dress? You'd be much more comfortable in jeans, like me, for such a long flight." "I ... em ..." stammered Sarah. There was no way on this earth she was getting on, "Such a long flight," at all. Then her mother's eyes misted over. "I'm sorry, darling," she said with the slightest hint of a choke, "You're not my little tomboy any more, are you? You've turned into a beautiful girl and all I can do is criticise." She pulled her daughter into a hug, then giggled, "But I still think the dress is a mistake." With that, she lifted two small cases and carried them out of the apartment, leaving Sarah to stare after her, flabbergasted. She snapped out of it, realising time was running out. Already her father was taking the last two cases into the lift. The doors closed and it began to descend. She ran for the stairs, descending as quickly as possible, but by the time she reached the outside door, the taxi driver was carrying them out, blocking the exit. Her father pushed past her and turned around, facing her, but talking over her shoulder. "Did you pull the door?" he asked. Amanda's voice said from behind Sarah, "Yes. I left the keys on the coffee table, like they asked us to do." Sarah stared up at the first-floor windows where their apartment was. The torch was still under the bed. No matter, she had been able to find the tunnel in the dark last time, so she could do so again. There was a more pressing problem. Her mother: easily. Colin: very probably. Her father: no way would she be able to outrun him. She got meekly into the taxi and furiously began to rack her brains. She was in the back, behind the driver. Her father was in the front passenger seat, and Colin was in the middle, complaining that he wanted a window. She was not within easy reach of either of her parents. The taxi was approaching a set of traffic lights, which had just turned red. Perfect. She watched the opposite road. The lights changed from green to amber, then red. Now. She pulled the door handle and stepped out into the middle of the road. The taxi lurched forwards a few centimetres and stopped, Sarah's door still open. Even at that time of night, there were still a few cars around, and the driver behind sounded his horn impatiently. Another, as if in answer to the first, screamed its objection to Sarah running across the road in front of it. She reached the pavement and made off as fast as she could, in the direction of The Old Coast Road. **** The taxi had driven about a kilometre in the opposite direction by the time it had been stopped by the light, so it took Sarah almost half an hour to reach her own house. She was conscious of her dress fluttering around her, more and more the faster she walked or ran, and of her arms' apparent unwillingness to stay close to her sides, all making her feel dangerously exposed. Things only got worse when she rounded the bend to see a police car sitting in front of her house. The car was empty, but two officers, a male and a female, were standing at the door, talking to Brenda, and they seemed to be in the process of leaving. As she watched, a few words drifted through the night air and she was able to make out that the officers were promising to inform Brenda as soon as any information came to light, concerning the whereabouts of her husband. If she had been thinking rationally, she would have crept into the bushes and waited, allowing the front door to close and the police car to drive safely off before making her move, but she was in a panic, and wanted to reach the cave without wasting a second more than she could possibly avoid. The two police officers still had their backs to the road, so she ran, as fast as she was able, passing the house before they were able to spot her, glancing over her shoulder in relief to see that neither had turned their head. What she had not taken into account was that, although the two officers were looking the other way, Brenda was facing them. It was she who spotted a sudden, rapid movement in the gloom on the other side of the road. It was her head that turned towards the shrubbery beyond. It was her eyes that searched the darkness for another sign. It was she who replied cooperatively to the questions the officers asked. "What is it? Did you see something?" "I ... I think so. I couldn't swear to it, but I thought I saw someone run past the house on the other side of the road." "Are you sure?" "Not really, but it might have been a girl." "What did she look like?" "Oh, slim, maybe early teens, wearing a dress, I think. Mid-calf length." The female officer looked over her shoulder, then replied, thoughtfully, "Maybe we should ..." She was interrupted by the crackling of the radio in the police car, and a voice announcing something that none of them could quite make out. The male officer returned to the car and engaged in a very short conversation before he stood up and called urgently to his colleague. "Another KALOF. Sarah Hampshire, English, thirteen years old, wearing a blue summer dress, last seen heading in this direction." "That sounds like the right age, and what she was wearing." The female police officer, who was still standing on the doorstep, did not waste any more time. "We'll be in touch as soon as we have anything," she said, and sprinted around the car to the driver's seat. Her colleague had his door closed and his seatbelt fastened before she had touched the handle. In the Unites States, APB stands for all-points bulletin. In the United Kingdom, APW stands for all-ports warning. In Australia, it is, "Keep a look-out for." It was Brenda who put herself in danger of never seeing her husband again. The engine roared into life, and the car took off; a little further along the road, Sarah heard the car starting up but did not realise her peril until she spotted the movement of the headlights on the road and the trees around her. In sudden panic, she clambered over the fence at the edge of the road, lucky to avoid snagging her foot in her dress, almost falling onto the ground on the other side, and only just retreating into the shrubbery in time to avoid being spotted. The car rushed past, followed by silence. How she wished the terrain had been good enough to walk the rest of the way through the trees! After a few dozen steps, she realised it would not be practical, as progress would be frustratingly slow, so, wanting to waste no more time than possible, she took the decision to return to the road. Clambering over the fence, much more carefully on this occasion, she again started off, half walking and half running, until at last she found the place she was looking for and began to climb into the estate. Minutes from now, she would be Noah again. The headlights appeared once more, this time from the opposite direction; it might be anyone, she thought; no, it would most probably not, she corrected herself; the only thing likely to be on this road was the police car that had passed ten or fifteen minutes ago. She hurried, hitching her dress up around her waist and jumping inelegantly onto the ground, then, just as the police car flashed past, scurrying as quickly as possible into the trees. She disappeared from sight at the same moment the police car ground to a halt; there was the distinctive sound of the car rapidly reversing, followed very quickly by that of its doors opening. "Hey!" a man's voice called. "Sarah Hampshire?" She ran. "I'm sure that's her," she heard the man say as the sound of heavy footsteps reached her. "She matches the description." Sarah, though, had disappeared by that time, and was sure she had successfully eluded her pursuers when she came across the cave, relieved to find it so quickly. The last thing she wanted to do was have to hide while the officers searched for her, trying to solve the dual problem of finding the tunnel and avoiding capture at the same time. The danger was past, though. She had escaped. She darted into the opening and ran towards the other end, and freedom. Noah's body. Brenda. ... only to feel a hand grab her wrist and pull her roughly back into the open air. The male police officer had overtaken her unbelievably quickly and had caught her at the last moment. She struggled helplessly against his hold. How had he caught up? That was impossible. The police officer, of course was stronger, had a longer stride and, crucially, was not wrapped in linen. He had been able to vault the fence in a split second. "Where on earth do you think you're going?" he asked, his grip not relaxing in the slightest. Seconds later, the female officer appeared. She had been delayed, not by being any slower, but because she had had to run around the car from the driver's seat before leaping over the fence just as easily as her male colleague. She took over and held Sarah by the arm. "Please," she begged, "you've got to let me go. Just leave me be." "You can't go in there," the policewoman said dispassionately, "it's far too dangerous. You could trip, hurt your head, anything. You might never be seen again." Sarah could only stare back at her in disbelief; never being seen again was exactly her purpose, but that was a point that was as impossible to argue as it would have been unbelievable. The female officer crouched slightly, bending her knees to bring her face level with Sarah's. "I'm Constable Steele," she said, much more gently. "You can call me Kim. My colleague is Senior Michael Jordan." "Call me Mick," the man said jovially. "Everyone else does." "The reason we pursued you," Kim then said, "is because you answer the description of an English girl reported to have gone on the run earlier tonight, and we apprehended you because we have reason to believe that you are that girl. Do you understand?" Sarah nodded. "Would you tell me your name, please?" Sarah only stared back, wide eyed, too frightened to answer. Kim sighed. "Is your name Sarah Hampshire?" she then asked, so sincerely that Sarah found herself unable to refuse her. She nodded and Kim smiled knowingly. "Come on," she said, "we'd better get you back to your parents." Sarah tried to back away, but was unable to twist herself free. "Sarah," Kim said, "it's all right. Whatever it was you were running away from, you're safe now." They began to lead Sarah back towards the road. There was no possible answer. Kim held Sarah's dress carefully, while Mick helped her climb, and before she knew it, she found herself in the back seat of the car. By the time the two officers had taken their seats in the front, she was already discovering that the inside door handle did not work. Kim looked over her shoulder and shook her head. Sarah let it go with a frustrated thunk. Mick looked at his partner with a mischievous smile. "Good job you sheilas run funny," he said and Sarah could sense Kim begin to bristle at his words. "And your point is?" she retorted, obviously annoyed. "Arms flapping everywhere," Mick replied, still grinning, "gave me something to grab on to. If she'd been a bloke, I'd probably have missed." Kim grunted in acknowledgement. If Sarah had not been so dejected and fearful, even she might have found the exchange amusing. Then both officers became serious. "I'll call it in," Mick said. Kim, who was at the wheel, then spoke over her shoulder. "Secure your seat belt, Sarah, please." She was sitting on the passenger side and Kim was able to see her fasten her belt. The car then pulled away gently and drove off. "Where are you taking me?" "We'll find out for sure pretty soon, but I expect it will be Rockhampton Airport." Kim was right. When Mick spoke to the control desk, confirming Sarah's name and description, he was informed that her parents and brother were already en route, under police escort. They would check her in (since she was a child) in her absence, and her identity would be verified at the gate. Sarah sat in the car, despair growing in her with every house, every street, and soon every field that passed. By the time they reached the airport, her escape, as she knew, would be much harder. Once she had got away from the police, her journey home would be difficult and treacherous. She had no transport, no money, and her description would be on every police radio between Rockhampton and Wollonga. She could not walk home by road, but she did not care. If she had to face a fifty- kilometre hike through fields and woods and across rivers to reach Brenda, that is what she would do. A true man would walk to the ends of the earth for his beloved, and she was a true man. Except for one rather glaring difficulty, that is. The car eventually pulled to a halt at the main entrance to the airport. Both police officers stood at her door, one either side, before opening it. Sarah made a sudden, half-hearted movement as if she were about to bolt, but Kim took hold of her shoulders, not tightly, but firmly enough for Sarah to stop and look at her. She then took out her handcuffs; these she placed on Sarah's wrists and waited a few seconds, before returning them to her belt. "I don't want to have to cuff you, Sarah," she said kindly. "Please don't make me." Sarah was so shaken by the intimidating feeling of the cold steel on her skin that she allowed herself to be led without protest into the airport and through security. Kim shepherded her through the detector before following; lights and sirens immediately flashed and shrieked as the officers passed, but the security staff waved them through. Sarah looked over her shoulder; there were too many people queueing for her to escape that way: one word from her escort and fifty hands would grab hold to restrain her. The only option was to hope that, like some airports, Rockhampton had an exit directly from the departure hall, and she desperately searched for it. She was led past the shops. No way out was to be seen anywhere, and soon she found herself walking through corridor after corridor, feeling as if she were being led into a maze where she would be abandoned, alone and afraid, unable ever to find her way out. One more flight of stairs and she found herself in a room, empty except for four people standing beside a desk at the other exit: her mother, father, brother and one woman in an airline uniform. Her father stood impassively, drawn up to his full height, looking angrily at her. Colin wore his usual, "Girls are stupid," expression, except this time he had taken his contempt to a new level. Amanda had red eyes and tears on her cheeks and she ran forward and embraced her daughter, imploring her to say she was all right, telling her how worried she had been, and how glad she was to have her back. The flight was ten minutes late in pushing back, having been held for Sarah's arrival at the request of the police. The other passengers were irritable, looking crossly at the family as they entered, having correctly guessed they were to blame for the delay. They took their seats, red-faced. Amanda decided it would be wise for her and her daughter to sit together and she put Sarah at the window. The door closed and the cabin immediately began to pressurise. Sarah shuddered at the effect the sensation had on her. It felt so final, as if she were being permanently sealed into her body. She felt the plane jerk as it began to move, then to taxi, and her anguish intensified with each movement. Then came the thing she had been dreading, and the knowledge it was coming did nothing to lessen the blow. The sudden roar of the engines was followed by the sensation of being pressed back into her seat, and then the mild illusion of floating as the wheels lifted. Sarah was leaving Queensland. She bowed her head and began to sob. Her mother put her arm around her and kissed the top of her head. "What is it, Sarah?" she asked quietly. "What's got into you? You can tell me." Sarah did not reply; she still sat with her head bowed, trembling miserably. "What happened in the taxi? Why did you run away like that?" "I don't know," Sarah lied, merely for the sake of saying something. "I just suddenly didn't want to leave and I panicked. I don't know what I was thinking. It was so stupid. I'm sorry." Amanda sighed and looked at her daughter for a while, then said, "Your father's pretty annoyed, but he's not really angry with you, you know. He was mainly worried about you, just like me, and he was a bit embarrassed by it all, too. Let me deal with him." Sarah nodded. "We'll stick together." "Thank you." "You must be whacked. Try and get some sleep." Amanda settled back and closed her eyes, leaving Sarah with nothing to stop her mind wandering, free to contemplate her fate, unprotected from her overwhelming feelings of dread for the future it looked like she was going to have to face: at least in the short term. She looked down at herself. Her bare legs were visible beyond her hemline. The fabric of her dress had settled into the valley made by the shape of her thighs, which seemed symbolic of the emptiness between them. Tears blurred her vision and dropped onto the hands folded on her lap. Each leg of the journey only made her feelings worse, each destination bringing a growing separation from the woman she loved. Sidney. Over one thousand kilometres from home, and escape had become impossible. Singapore. The impossible had turned into the inconceivable. Layer after layer of misery was heaped upon her with every cabin pressurisation, every push-back, every taxi, every take-off. Finally, too tired to feel any more, she fell asleep. "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Heathrow," a pleasant voice said, waking her up with a start, only to have her hopes dashed when she discovered she was still Sarah. There was an excited babble all around her; many people were experiencing the thrill of visiting London for the first time; many were returning home; many were about to meet relatives or friends they had not seen for years. Sarah felt no such excitement. She was stranded in England, stranded thousands of kilometres from home and from salvation, stranded in the body of a thirteen-year-old girl. The taxi journey from the airport was a blur. Sarah had no idea which direction they travelled, or for how long. She could only stare blankly ahead in stunned silence. Her father carried the suitcases into the house. She followed. At this stage, she did not notice the number, the colour of the front door, or the wallpaper. She followed her father upstairs. There she found a case sitting in a room that clearly belonged to a teenage girl. Amanda watched her enter. She smiled sadly at her daughter as she pushed the door shut behind her. Sarah threw herself onto the bed. She lay face down. She did not stir until her pillow was damp to the touch. Chapter 4. The Struggle The days that followed were a nightmare of unfamiliarity. Her house, her room her clothes, her possessions, her friends, herself, all were unknown and alien to her. Especially herself. Added to that was homesickness, and her grief at losing Brenda. Thoughts of her wife were what hurt the most (not that other things were very far behind). As days turned into weeks, Sarah began to calm down and think more rationally. For the time being, she was forced to accept that she was stuck as she was. She had a simple choice: give up and live in misery, or fight to be herself again. She decided to fight, and set herself the challenge of finding a way to engineer a return to Wollonga. Her punishment for running off on that fateful night passed, as did, before many weeks had gone by, her fourteenth birthday. Sarah made a conscious effort to conform to expectations, particularly those of her family. Colin still despised her (although even that seemed to be mellowing as time passed) but her relationship with her parents strengthened, in particular the bond between mother and daughter. Her parents began to regard her with respect and trust. And so, about two months after their return from Australia, Sarah decided it was time she broached the subject of next year's holiday and, by taking the lead, hoped to win some influence over the decision. "I liked this years holiday," she said and her mother looked up and smiled. Her father's nose remained in his newspaper. "Yes, it was very good, I agree," Amanda replied slowly, "but it was a long way to go for such a short break." "I enjoyed it so much, I'd like to do it again," Sarah suggested hopefully. "Could we go to the same place next year?" "Too expensive," Patrick decreed without looking up. Amanda saw the disappointment and trepidation on her daughters face and frowned, feeling concerned. "Darling, your father's right, you know," she said. "It's not something we can afford to do every year. Like most people, we have to content ourselves with holidays that are a bit more within our means, and only make a big trip like that every so often." "Like in twenty years," said the newspaper. "But, I ... I ... I want to go back to Wollonga," Sarah whispered earnestly, with tears starting in her eyes at the very thought of having to wait for so long. "More than anything in the world." Her mother looked at her with surprise mixed with sympathy. "Sarah," she said, "why on earth would you want to go back there? Sydney and Melbourne were both fantastic, yes, but those last few days in Wollonga weren't anything to write home about. To tell you the truth, I wasn't that impressed with the place at all." Sarah could only shake her head in disbelief. "You know we agreed that next year we would go for a more relaxing holiday, somewhere where there's a beach or a pool. Somewhere I can wear a bikini, preferably all day. You too, if you want. By next summer you'll be nearly fifteen. You'll be developing a bit of a figure, and boys will be starting to notice you." Sarah cried herself to sleep that night, for the first time in quite some while. However, the following morning, she had made a new resolve. If her parents were either unwilling or unable to take her back to Wollonga, she would have to do so herself. Immediately, though, she found herself having to face up to an unpleasant fact: she was fourteen years old, had no money, and in any case, would not be able to make such a journey on her own, even if she could find the means to pay. There was the icy grip on her heart again, the one that used to clutch mercilessly at her when she awoke in the mornings. Waiting until she was old enough might sound positive, but was a false hope. The reality was far worse. To be brutally honest with herself, she was going to have to wait until she could finance the trip with her own money, which would most certainly take a dauntingly long time. She would have to suffer her misfortune all the way through school, all the way through university, all the way to the point in her career where she had managed to save enough for a one-way ticket to Rockhampton, with enough left over for a taxi to Wollonga. That, realistically, meant she could be staring down the barrel of a ten to fifteen year sentence, with the body of Sarah Hampshire as her prison. She would be strong. That was the first bargain she made with herself. Noah Campbell was no quitter, and neither was she. She was Noah, and she was never going to forget. She would do whatever she had to do to survive, and to become herself again. Her first target was school. The better she did there, the better would be the job she could expect, and the quicker would she be able to build up the money she needed. She threw herself into every subject, every class, every piece of homework. In doing so, she unwittingly worked out her grief, successfully navigating herself all the way through to the final stage of the process: acceptance. It was a strange and unexpected experience to find herself waking each morning without the cold hand of dread awaiting her as she became self-aware, and to find herself with practical things to do; things to look forward to and to be enthusiastic about. Furthermore, her body began to change and she slowly found herself turning from a girl into a young woman. Her mother had been right; boys did indeed begin to notice her. However, something else happened that her mother had not mentioned, and that Sarah herself had not considered or expected: she also began to notice boys. This slow dawn of recognition frightened her; she realised she was in danger of becoming just Sarah, and in doing so was equally in danger of allowing Noah to die, which was something she wanted never to happen; the man who loved Brenda Campbell was still there, buried deep down perhaps, but still fighting for his survival. Her problem, though, was her environment: her body, her life, family, friends; all of these things completely immersed her in the life led by a woman; this gradually became the norm, and she continued to notice boys. One boy in particular would not leave her alone. Dan Marshall pestered her constantly; morning, break times, lunch, between classrooms ... there he was, trying to walk her to school, trying to walk her home. She began to vary her route, just to give herself some relief; sometimes she would take a diversion when walking from one class to another, trying to avoid him; but no matter what she did, Dan always seemed to bump into her. He began to ask her to one of the school dances and would not take no for an answer; he constantly badgered her and made such a nuisance of himself that eventually she laughed and agreed, simply to get rid of him. Their first kiss was a few weeks after that. There were many more, but the romance did not last. The end of sixth year, and of their school careers arrived, and with it the end of their relationship. Sarah forged ahead undaunted. She was still unable to afford the journey home, and was now faced with a tough choice: should she cut her losses, look for a job, and start saving immediately; or should she invest more time in a university career to seek greater earning power, albeit after a delay of a few years? Her exam results had been excellent, so she made her decision, and began a career at University College London, studying medicine. She had already decided not to specialise in gynaecology. The years passed. Colin, who now towered six inches above Sarah (to her, Colin was a giant; to Colin, though, Sarah was a tall, beautiful woman), could not have been further from his former, "Girls are stupid," attitude, and absolutely doted on his elder sister. She became firm friends with Lorna, Colin's girlfriend, a friendship that turned out to be a godsend when unexpected tragedy struck. Early one Friday morning, Sarah was in her flat in the undergraduate residences, having not yet left for her first lecture, when she heard the text alert on her phone. It was Colin, asking her if she were in. He happened to be in Tottenham Court Road, close to where she lived, and wanted to pop in to see her, he said; this immediately alerted her to the fact that (given the early hour) something must be wrong. In truth he had driven over specially, and was prepared to wait as long as necessary for his sister to receive an apparently casual visitor, irrespective of how bizarre the circumstances might seem. She replied almost immediately, saying she was in, and purporting that it would be great to see him. "If only you knew," he thought to himself as he climbed the stairs to her front door, not realising that she was already suspicious. "What is it?" Sarah asked, her own face, which already looked worried, turning pale at the sight of him. Colin stepped inside without being asked; she had obviously realised something was wrong and any delay would only make things worse, so he made sure he was within arm's reach before he spoke. "It's Dad," he said simply. Sarah lost what little remained of the colour of her face. "What?" she murmured faintly. "I'm sorry, sis, he's dead," Colin replied, laying his hands gently on her upper arms. "He died last night." Sarah choked, swayed, and then tried to turn away from her brother, but he held firm and she relented, leaning against him, immediately glad she had done so. Colin held her for a minute; he could feel her breathing unevenly, each breath trembling. He guided her to the sofa. "I didn't want to tell you on the phone. I wanted to be with you when I told you," Colin explained and Sarah nodded. She sat and stared into space. "What happened?" she asked eventually. "A stroke." "When?" "During the night." She leant against him. "Oh, God," she said, sounding horrified. "Did Mum find him this morning when she woke up?" Colin nodded. Her reaction was to bury her face in her brother and sob, "Oh, Dad! Poor Mum!" When she eventually pushed herself away and sat upright, she seemed to have made a decision. "To hell with physiology and neurology," she said firmly, "I need to see Mum." "I'll take you now. You need to pack anything? Can I help?" **** The days that followed were a sore trial, but were also the foundation of the strong bond that formed between Sarah and Lorna; Colin's girlfriend turned out to be tower of strength who organised everything, leaving the family free to grieve the untimely death of Patrick Hampshire, aged only fifty-two. While the tragic events brought Sarah and her mother closer to each other than ever before, it was the two younger women who formed a lasting friendship; they often socialised together, leaving Colin free to go out with his own male friends, something that endeared Sarah to her brother even more as time went on. She and Lorna grew ever closer, though, and before many months had passed they had promised to be each other's bridesmaids. Sarah had not thought about Brenda for more than eighteen months. It was in her final year at University College that Sarah had another surprise. She was sitting in Richmond Park, reading a book, oblivious to everything around her. "Hi, Sarah." Sarah turned to see a man standing next to her. "Em, hi," she replied, "I don't think we've met." "We have," the man said. "A long time ago." Sarah stared at him, then gasped. "Dan!" she exclaimed. "Dan Marshall! Oh, my God! How are you?" Dan sat down beside her and they talked for hours. He had studied economics at the University of Kent and was now working in the city. They began dating almost immediately and, a year or two after Sarah graduated, Lorna became the first of the two girls to have the honour of being a bridesmaid, when Dr. Sarah Hampshire became Dr. Sarah Marshall. Colin, proud as punch, gave her away, although from that point of view the occasion was bitter-sweet. It happened on their wedding night. After making love as man and wife for the first time, Dan was about to roll onto his side, but Sarah, with an affectionate, "Mmm," held on, wrapping her arms and legs around him. It was at that moment that memories came rushing back; memories that flooded into her head making her feel as if a tidal wave had knocked her over; for the first time on two or three years, she thought of Brenda. What she had just done to Dan, holding him with her arms and legs to keep him lying over her, was exactly what her wife used to do to her. She remembered how wonderful it felt to run her hands over Brenda's soft curves and cup her breasts, just as Dan was now doing to Sarah. That night, Dan quickly fell asleep, but she lay against him, deep in thought. The months passed; Sarah recovered from the relapse on her wedding night, and settled both into married life and the development of her career. Her relationship with Dan grew stronger as time passed, and a few weeks before their second wedding anniversary, they decided to stop using contraceptives. Six months later, Sarah found out she was pregnant. Four months into her pregnancy, she and Dan were in bed, he on his back and she, whose bump was beginning to show, snuggled into his side. Dan, who usually fell asleep easily, began to doze off, but Sarah lay awake, thinking. Even though it felt wonderful to be a mother-to-be, there was a large measure of guilt to those feelings. She was experiencing the joy she had wanted to give Brenda, but only after leaving Brenda abandoned and alone. A tear fell from her eye and landed on Dan's shoulder. He woke immediately and turned his head. "Sarah? Are you okay?" "Don't worry about it. It's just hormones." "Yeah, I've heard all about pregnant women and hormones. I was wondering when you'd get some of them." "This is nothing. Just wait till I start on the anchovies and custard." "Anchovies and custard? That's disgusting!" "I agree, but the worrying thing is, they're starting to sound less repulsive these days." "If I ever catch you with anchovies and custard, I'll divorce you." "In that case, I'd better have them with whipped cream." She felt a little better after the humorous exchange, and her feelings of guilt gradually trailed off as, day by day, motherhood loomed. By the time she had given birth to a daughter, Lucy, she was once more completely immersed in Sarah's life and had little time for remorse. Then, when their daughter was almost a year old, Dan and Sarah began to talk about having another baby. Just the thought inspired their lovemaking to become more intense, returning it to the passion they had experienced as newly-weds. There was one night in particular when, after making love gently and tenderly. Dan kissed her, then began to move away. Sarah held firm. Memories of Brenda came rushing back. **** During the months that followed, two subjects tended to dominate the more serious conversations between the couple. The first was as expected: planning the expansion of their family and the right time to begin trying to get Sarah pregnant; the second, though, was subtle and underhand: Sarah was carefully manipulating Dan into agreeing to a holiday in Australia. She had finally decided that, even if their lives had been torn asunder by stupidity and misfortune, even if they had drifted irrevocably apart, even if the wrongness that Sarah felt in Brenda's presence could never be undone, she had no option but to yield to her compulsion: to seek her wife and hope to find her well, that she had recovered from the loss of her husband, that she had managed to rebuild her life in some way. In early summer, when Lucy was almost two, they once more stopped using contraceptives; Sarah prevailed in her desire to visit Australia; although Dan readily agreed, he did point something out. "You realise this is going to be right in the middle of trying for another baby?" "Shouldn't be a problem. They have sex in Australia just like everywhere else." Dan laughed. "They might charge more for it. Sorry, that came out all wrong." Sarah giggled in reply. "And as far as I know, the customs people don't charge you for importing a foetus." So it was that, in late July, Dan, Sarah and Lucy arrived at Heathrow Airport to begin the journey to Australia, following the reverse path that had taken Sarah from home almost seventeen years ago: London to Singapore, then on to Sydney. They were due to spend a week there before moving on to Brisbane for a few days, then, after a stay of one night in Rockhampton, they would (with Dan taking her word that the town was worth a visit) spend two nights in Wollonga before travelling south again, for a week in Melbourne; returning home after another two days in Sydney. Sarah was counting down the days to her arrival home, as soon as they touched down in Noah's homeland. She calculated that the ovulation phase of her cycle was due to take place around the time they would be in Brisbane or Rockhampton, which meant that there was a chance of Queensland being the place where their second child would be made, and she wondered whether she might already be pregnant by the time she met Brenda. Sydney and Brisbane were both beautiful and exciting cities, and Sarah enjoyed her time there, despite her desperation for the days to pass and the next stage to arrive; however, when they reached Rockhampton, despite knowing it well from many years ago, she was hardly aware of the city in which she had passed so much of her working life as a man ... so intoxicated had she become with the thought of Wollonga drawing ever closer. The taxi from Rockhampton to Wollonga wound through countryside that was becoming ever more familiar to Sarah as the journey went on, and soon she found herself gasping in surprise at the sight of the name she had longed to see at last appearing on a sign before her; a feeling that quickly turned to surprise and disappointment as she realised she recognised none of the buildings that followed on from the name of the town. It was more than fifteen years since she had last been here, she reasoned, so it was only to be expected that the town would have expanded since than, and the outskirts of Wollonga as it now stood would be unknown. She eagerly stared out of the window as the buildings passed and it was another minute or two before anything familiar came into view. The centre of the town was unchanged. She was home. After their journey, both Dan and Sarah were tired, so they went straight to sleep that night; the following evening would be dedicated to Lucy's younger sibling. Perhaps it would be in Noah's home town of Wollonga that her second child would be conceived. After breakfast, Dan and Lucy were sitting on the sofa happily playing a silly imitation game, and Sarah announced she wanted to go for a walk; when Dan seemed slightly reluctant, she suggested she go alone, and Dan readily agreed; he was, in fact, not particularly impressed with Wollonga at all, and was looking forward impatiently to the trip to Melbourne. Sarah set off; there being little point in wasting any more time, now that she was alone and free to explore the town, she made a bee-line for The Old Coast Road. That part of the town had hardly changed since she had lived there, and her heart was in her mouth as she passed the last few buildings; she decided not even to glance at the apartment block where her family had passed that fateful holiday. She left the built up area and approached the bend just before the house; how curious it was, she thought, that her heart could be in her mouth and yet still be thumping so hard in her chest; she reached the bend; she walked nervously round it; there was the house, even more beautiful than she remembered. Having made it this far, she could not simply turn and walk away, however strongly the sudden cowardice rising in her breast might urge her to flee. She pushed open the gate; how well she remembered the white fence, Brenda's beloved garden, the windows, the door - even the sound of the bell was like an old friend when she pushed the button. She waited for a few seconds, then, through the dimpled glass, she saw a movement; it was a woman who approached; a familiar figure, a familiar gait; the door opened and there stood Brenda; older perhaps, but still as beautiful as ever, smiling in welcome at the stranger on her doorstep. "Hello," she said, and her voice was like music to Sarah's ears; a voice she had not heard for many a year, but was still the beautiful lilt she remembered; how wonderful it was, to hear it after all this time! "Hi," Sarah replied nervously, "I'm sorry to bother you, but I was passing, and ... this may sound a bit weird, but I'm sure we've met before. When I was a little girl." "Really? Where? I don't remember." "Here. Just outside. You were in the garden when I stopped to look at it. I was only thirteen at the time, though. While we were talking, my parents drove up and made me get into the car ..." "Oh! Yes, the young English girl! My goodness, so that was you. How are you ... Sarah, isn't it, or should I call you Jen?" "Sarah," she replied, laughing. "You didn't change your name to the one you wanted, then." "I changed more than my name," she thought to herself. "And to things I didn't want." "Not that name," she said aloud. Suddenly, she was shaking; without warning, everything came rushing over her, and she felt as if she were back where she had started sixteen years ago, standing before Brenda in frustration, her body all wrong, her heart's desire impossible. "Are you all right?" Brenda asked, sounding concerned; she put out her hand, thinking the woman on her doorstep looked unsteady on her feet; she was not far from the truth. "I'm sorry, I've been walking and I suddenly felt a bit faint. I guess I'm not used to this climate." "Why don't you come in? I was making tea." "Oh, no, I don't want to intrude." "Nonsense, you wouldn't be. Come and sit down for a while. I'll make you one too." "That would be lovely, thank you." Sarah took a seat in the living room, her self-control gradually returning as she listened to the sounds of Brenda bustling about in the kitchen. As she recovered, she began to cast her eyes around the room: there were a few framed photographs scattered around, and she scanned them with idle curiosity, but then one in particular caught her attention, making her blood run cold; it was large, mounted in an expensive frame, and it was clearly a wedding photograph. The two people in it were Brenda and an unknown man. Sarah's heart sank. Her wife had moved on. She had found a man to replace her in the role she had lost the ability to fulfil. It was time to accept her new life, and to leave Brenda in peace to enjoy hers. Shortly, Brenda returned and laid a tray down on the coffee table. Sarah uncharacteristically put a spoonful of sugar into her cup, knowing it would help calm her nerves, and eventually she felt composed enough to trust herself to talk. "Thank you very much," she opened, "I feel much better now. Your house is lovely." "That's very nice of you, thanks. Em, I take it, you're back here on holiday again?" "Yes, I came over with my husband and daughter for a few weeks. To tell you the truth, I've wanted to come back to Australia since the day I left. More than most people realise." "They say some people fall in love with Australia the first time they see it, and it's a life-long affair," Brenda mused, then smiled. "So, how old is your daughter?" "Two. Her name's Lucy." "Two?" Brenda echoed sympathetically. "I know the terrible twos can be tough, but then they start turning into little princesses." Sarah laughed. "Something to look forward to. Here," she said, fishing out her mobile phone, "I'll show you a picture. Just one, I promise ..." The two women continued chatting easily for a while, before Sarah finally plucked up the courage to ask the question that had been her reason for visiting Brenda in the first place. "Actually, there's something else I was going to ask you. I hope you don't think I'm prying, or anything like that, but when I was here as a girl, there was a man that disappeared. A doctor." Brenda looked shocked; her face paled slightly and she was flustered for a second or two. She stared at Sarah, her face expressionless, saying nothing. Sarah felt obliged to continue. "I ... em, I knew because I saw it on the television at the airport while we were waiting for our flight." "Dr. Noah Campbell," Brenda said. "He was my husband, but I think you already knew that." Inside, Sarah jumped at the word, "Was," but managed not to show it. "When I got home, I searched for the story on the internet, and I saw a picture of this house, and I felt so sorry, because then I realised it must be you whose husband had disappeared. "It had quite an effect on me and, well, I was only a little girl, but I have to admit, I cried myself to sleep because of it, quite a few times." Brenda smiled sadly. "So did I," she added softly. "Was he ever found?" Brenda shook her head. "He was declared dead almost ten years ago. His body was never found." "I am so sorry." Only Sarah was aware of the genuine and heartfelt subtext carried by that apology. "Thank you, but I'm in a much better place now. Once Noah had been declared legally dead, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders, so to speak, and then I was able to grieve properly. I began to rebuild my life. My daughter, Esther, helped immensely, and things are okay now. In fact, I remarried about three years ago." Sarah's head was reeling at that last piece of news. Not only had Brenda remarried, but she had a daughter, and from her words it sounded as if her daughter pre-dated her second marriage by some considerable time. "You ... you have a daughter too?" Sarah stammered, "How old is she?" "Sixteen. I named her after her father. Because she's a girl I could hardly call her Noah, so I gave her another biblical name." "So ... your husband ... he never knew!" "No. That's one of the things that upsets me the most. Noah never knew he had a daughter." Sarah sat in stunned silence. "She's gone to a shop in the town with Liam, that's my husband. They should be back any time now. In fact, speak of the devil ..." Sarah could hear noises coming from the front door, and two voices: one male, the other female. Moments later, a man who looked to be in his mid-forties entered in the company of a young woman who simply had to be Brenda's daughter; she had the same natural elegance, the same sallow complexion, the same undisguisable innate beauty; but there was something else - perhaps the shape of her eyes, her nose, her mouth - Sarah was not quite sure, but there was something of Noah in her face too. Brenda was sixteen, so she had been born only months after Noah's disappearance. Even if Brenda had not told her, she would have realised now: there was only one person who could possibly be Esther's father, and that was the person trapped in Sarah's body. Everything had turned on its head and Sarah was trembling. She struggled to her feet and hardly heard what Brenda was saying as she introduced them to each other. She shook hands with Liam, then, with an electric tingle running up her arm, with Esther, who took a seat beside her mother while Liam made his excuses and left. Mother and daughter were the image of each other; they sat together, obviously having a strong , healthy attachment. Sarah began to rue the chances she had missed. When the time came for her to leave, she had already made up her mind. Noah had won, and Sarah had lost . She would return to the tunnel without another moment's delay, then return to Brenda's side to reclaim her place as husband and father. Chapter 5. The Trap Sarah had made up her mind; she walked determinedly from her home towards the estate where her salvation lay. She did not want to be trapped in this life any more, and she now cursed the years she had wasted; surely she could have returned home sooner than she had! The road was exactly as she remembered, and the fence was unchanged; perhaps a little older, more blackened by the summer rainfall, but the spot to scale it was unmistakeable. Although she was again wearing a dress, the climb was easier than the last time, due to her increased stature, and soon she found herself in familiar woodland terrain; only minutes later she stood at the mouth of the cave, at the end of the tunnel from which thirteen-year-old Sarah Hampshire had emerged almost two decades ago. A quick look around confirmed she was completely alone, so she stepped into the opening of the passageway and undressed. Since her original intention had only been to visit Brenda, with no plans to become a man again, she had not thought to bring a torch, so she had to pick her way carefully through the darkness, and, having to carry her clothes, had limited use of her arms to feel her way. She was taller than she had been the last time she had walked through the tunnel in this direction, so with every step she cringed, half expecting to bump her head. She felt the way with her feet, conscious of the danger of stumbling, but she did not care; there was too much at stake to allow herself to falter. By the time Noah reached the other end, he was laughing with delight; he could feel his strength returning, his stride becoming more purposeful, and, since it was bright daylight outside, was able to look down and see something he had not seen for years and had not expected ever to see again: a man's body. His euphoria lasted only moments, though, before a thought struck him, one that made his heart sink. The only male clothes he had were the ones he had left in the storage box at his feet, but they had lain there for seventeen years. What if they had disintegrated? What would he do then? Surely he would not have to suffer the frustration of becoming Sarah again, forced to return through the tunnel after becoming himself for such an unbearably short time, because only she was able to clothe herself? He should have checked first, to avoid risk of dealing himself such a cruel blow, should he have regained his manhood, only to have it instantly taken away again. The catches on the box snapped open easily, and he lifted the contents. Thank goodness! Everything was in reasonable condition, unfaded, with only a few crease marks to show they had been folded for such a long time. He donned them in triumph and, leaving Sarah's clothes in the storage box to rot forever, made his way as quickly as he could to the fence and made a point of leaping it in a single bound, his hand on the post; a symbolic gesture. The action of leaping the fence answered one of his questions. He had felt a certain stiffness, as if he were noticeably older than he had been last time. He knew from experience that Sarah no longer existed; he had established years ago that she only came into existence when he became her. That meant he need not feel guilty about Dan and Lucy; now that the world was as it should be, he would have married someone else, which meant his daughter would have a different mother. The real question was himself: had he come back through the tunnel as his original self from seventeen years ago, aged twenty-eight, with Brenda about to discover she was pregnant; or had he become Noah as he would have been after those seventeen years had passed, aged forty-five, with a sixteen-year-old daughter? Leaping the fence had told him the answer: he was forty-five years old, and he had felt it in his knees and ankles when he landed on the road. The fifteen or twenty minutes it took to half-walk, half-jog back to his house seemed like a lifetime to Noah; he arrived, much more fatigued than he would have expected (although gaining more than fifteen years in the last quarter of an hour certainly did not help). Brenda, to his delight, was in the front garden and he smiled in triumph, then, pulling himself up to his full eight, strode purposefully towards his house and his wife, with the sole intention of sweeping her into his arms ... but he stopped in disarray when he saw Liam walk out of the front door, straight over to Brenda, and kiss her. Noah retreated and did his best to conceal himself behind the trees that lined the road, while he watched the intolerable scene play out before him. Liam kissed Noah's wife again, then led her into the house. At that point, Noah left his cover, walked to the fence surrounding the house and stared, as if her were silently challenging Liam to face him in a duel to the death, over the hand of the woman they both loved. He did not notice the movement at one of the upstairs windows, nor did he see the faint outline of a face as it looked out at him in disbelief. Esther, who had been reading at a table close to her bedroom window, happened to be distracted by a movement in the road outside, and, when she turned her head, was amazed at what she saw. Quick as a flash, she opened the drawer of her dressing table and removed a cardboard box; she searched inside it, among the many photographs, until she found one in particular, creased and dog-eared; running to the window, she held it up before her and gasped with the shock of sudden realisation. Noah began to walk past the house in the direction of the town, unsure of what was happening, or of what to do; he turned and looked at the house again, took a few steps backwards; then he turned once more and marched towards Wollonga, soon passing out of sight. Esther quickly descended the stairs, slipping the photograph into her pocket, then, calling out that she was going for a walk and not waiting for a reply, she let herself out of the front door and ran after the mysterious figure she had spotted moments ago. She caught up with him on the main road running towards the centre of town, but hung back, not wanting to be spotted following him. After walking for about ten minutes, he turned into a side street, and she ran towards the corner, afraid she would lose him; just in time, she reached the junction to see him entering the main door of a hotel. **** Noah strode confidently through the lobby, past reception to the lifts; no-one gave him a second glance, thinking him to be just another guest. The lift arrived, emptied, and he pressed the third floor button. Sarah and Dan were in room 319; he knocked on the door, his confidence sapping as he waited for an answer; the door opened and his heart sank; this was exactly what he had feared. "Hello, er ... can I help you?" said the man who had opened the door. It was Dan, and he was holding Lucy in his arms. Noah was devastated; this was not what he had wanted to see; nothing was turning out the way he had expected. Why were things not working the way they had last time, seventeen years ago? There was nothing to do but soldier on and make absolutely sure. "I'm sorry to bother you," Noah replied, "but I was looking for Dr. Sarah Marshall." "And you are?" "I'm Dr. Ian Hughes. I'm a ex-colleague of Sarah's. I met her when I was working in England a year or two ago." "Oh, right. Was she expecting you? She never mentioned it." "I said I'd look her up while she was here, but we never made a concrete arrangement, so, no, I guess she wasn't, really." "I'm afraid she's not here at the moment. Would you like to wait?" "No, it's all right. I'll phone her, which is what I should have done to begin with. Sorry for the intrusion." "Not a problem. I'll tell her you were here." "Thanks." The conversation had been stilted and far from natural, but Noah did not care; it had served its purpose and he had an answer to the question that had been in his mind. He turned away and heard the door close as he was walking back towards the lift. He had used the false name Hughes twice now: once, years ago when Sarah's parents told him they did not have a daughter; and today, when her husband had told him she was real. Something, he had no idea what, had changed; nor did he have any idea why, but he knew full well what the implications were, and he also knew - and dreaded - the effect it was going to have on his future. **** Esther was sitting in an armchair hiding behind a magazine when she saw Noah exit the lift and cross the lobby towards the main door. She casually stood and followed a few seconds behind. The man she was tailing seemed to have changed somehow; he was walking more slowly and seemed to be deep in thought; she felt more confident about following him without being spotted. He returned by the route he had entered Wollonga less than half an hour ago, pausing at the corner just before her house, and walking quickly (the only time he had walked at that speed) as he passed. The Old Coast Road being fairly straight, she was forced to fall behind, and she followed at a distance for about a quarter of an hour before, again fearing she would eventually lose him, she decided to quicken her pace and make an approach. At that point, the man stopped and began to climb the fence at the side of the road. Esther's reaction was to run, since it would be easy to lose him in the trees and she quickly reached the point where he had scaled the fence; she followed, scrambling over and, after a few paces into the trees, caught sight of her quarry just ahead. She did not slacken her pace; she was now determined to catch the man and challenge him. **** "Excuse me?" Noah stopped and turned round to see Esther standing a few metres away. He could not bring himself to speak, least of all to say the, "I'm sorry, do I know you?" that he knew would be best under the circumstances. He knew exactly who she was, having spoken to her that very morning; she was the reason Sarah had returned to this place, and she was also the main reason that Noah was so distraught about coming back now. Esther, however, was not unnerved by his reticence and she persevered. "Is your name Noah Campbell?" she continued, looking steadily at him as she took a pace or two forwards, "It is, isn't it? You're Noah Campbell, my father." She took the photograph out of her jeans pocket and held it up for him to see. Noah took one look at it and his shoulders drooped; there was a fallen tree a step or two away and he dropped onto it, looking defeated. Esther, being now certain she was right, was too angry to worry about being alone with a strange man, far from civilisation and from anyone who could assist her, and she now advanced towards him, standing at the far end of the tree. "This is the part where you tell me why the hell you walked out on Mum and me, and where the hell you've been all these years." "I've been in England, living under a different ... name, and I didn't walk out on you. I was taken away, against my will, and I didn't know I had a daughter until this morning." "And how exactly was it you found out about me?" "I met you. Bren... your mum introduced us. I nearly collapsed when she told me." "You're lying. We've never been introduced to each other." "We were. That was me who was in your house earlier." Esther laughed derisively. "That was definitely not you. The person who was in our house this morning was a woman. An actual, real woman, and there's absolutely no way on earth it could have been you. You're far too big." "It was me." "If you're too much of a coward to tell the truth, at least do me the courtesy of inventing a story that doesn't insult my intelligence." Noah sighed heavily. "There's a small hill over there," he said, pointing through the trees; Esther followed the line of his arm and was able to make out its shape through the trees. "Seventeen years ago," he continued uncertainly, "I discovered a tunnel that leads through that hill. I was out walking, and I stumbled across it by chance." "And?" "I walked through it, but when I got to the other end, I found that ... you're not going to believe this ..." "Believe what?" Esther was beginning to sound exasperated. "I'd turned into a thirteen-year-old girl." Esther looked as if she had turned to stone, so still was she as she stared at Noah in disbelief. Then, all of a sudden, she roared into life, like a lioness pouncing upon her prey. "Remember the bit about not being a coward?" she said. "About not insulting my intelligence?" "Please, just bear with me," Noah replied, and he launched into his story; beginning with Sarah's incredulous reaction when she discovered what had happened to her; how she had stupidly allowed herself to be caught and taken to England; how she had had to wait for years until she was able to return; and finally, why she had decided to become Noah again. Esther listened in disbelief, but at least she was listening. "I know you don't believe me," Noah said, laughing, but receiving no reaction from his daughter, "but you don't have to take my word for it, because I'm going to prove it to you." "What do you mean?" "I'm going back through there. I have to become Sarah again, and this time it really will be for good." He rose and began to walk slowly towards the cave. Esther stared after him for a few seconds before she jumped up. "Dad," she called, "what are you doing?" "I'm not going through just yet," he replied, "I'll need to pluck up the courage first." Esther followed him into the mouth of the tunnel, where Noah opened the storage box to reveal Sarah's dress and other garments. He lifted her shoulder bag and looked inside. Esther stared at the contents of the box, horrified. "What have you done?" she said. "Have you murdered that woman ..." "In a way," Noah replied, "I suppose you could say I have killed her. Killed her by not being her any more. Not at the moment, anyhow." He sighed and returned to the fallen tree, where he took out Sarah's phone and turned it on. Esther continued to follow him and, to her amazement, he unlocked it. "This is me," he said, "Sarah Marshall, with my two-year-old daughter, Lucy." "She's beautiful," came the reply, but it was hesitant, unconvinced. "And this is me with my husband, Dan." Esther looked at Noah in distaste. "How can you say that?" she spat out. "Your mother told me she gave you a biblical name, in my honour." "When?" "Today. In your house, in the living room. She told me just before you got back from the shop you were at with Liam." "That wasn't you!" Noah then related the conversation that Brenda, Sarah and Esther had had that morning, almost word for word. Esther listened, entranced, her face turning whiter with each passing word. Finally, she sat and stared at him; she no longer looked angry, rather she seemed upset. Noah now knew she was listening; he had drawn her in enough for her at least to accept his story hypothetically, even if she did not fully believe him. "All these years, I didn't know you had been born," Noah said, leaning towards her and lifting an arm as if he expected a hug, but Esther backed away. "Of course," Noah said sadly, "I've lost the right to embrace my daughter, haven't I? Along with everything else I've lost." "Okay," Esther said slowly, as if in thought. "So supposing ... just supposing that what you told me is possible, why would Sarah ... you ... stay away for so long? Why not just come back and become yourself again?" "That is exactly what I wanted. It is the one thing I longed for all that time, but I couldn't. I had no way of getting back here. I was only thirteen, and my parents refused, so I was stranded. There was nothing I could do except cry myself to sleep every night. "I tried to talk my parents into coming back here on holiday again, even though I detested the idea of spending a whole year as a girl while I waited, but it turned out to be much worse than that, because they said they didn't want to come back here at all, ever. I was devastated, and then I realised that the only person who could save me was myself. The only way back here was the slow way, so I had no option but to fall back on Plan B." "Which was?" "Grow up, get a job, pay my my own way. It was the growing up that was the scary bit, though." "I'll bet," Esther scoffed; she was now talking as if she accepted her father's story as plausible. "The problem was, Plan B needed to have some contingency built in. What if I never made it back? What if I wasn't able to travel? What if Australia refused me a visa? What if I got here to find a military base? Or a hotel and that tunnel didn't exist any more?" "You nearly did." "Why?" "The land's been sold. Sandeep Laghari moved back to India. A property developer owns the estate now, and they're going to build holiday homes all along here." "Perhaps it would have been better if that was what had happened. After all, that's what I made my plans for; I had to face the possibility that I might be stuck as Sarah for the rest of my life, and therefore I had to make sure that I had a life, in case that's what happened. Now I wish it had. "But even that's not quite the whole story." "There's more?" "Well, yes. The more I tried to build a life as Sarah, the more I became Sarah. That's the real reason I took so long to come back here: I had sort of fallen into her life and become assimilated as a woman, then as a wife, and finally as a mother. I almost - almost - forgot who I really was. "When I eventually came, I don't think I was completely clear about my motives any more. It was Brenda. Your mum. She was why I did it. Over the years, I had slowly forgotten about her, and then I felt so guilty when I suddenly found myself thinking about her again. I just wanted to find out what had happened to her. "Then everything changed when I saw her, and I realised how much I cared for her, and when you came in and I found out who you are, well, that put the tin lid on it. Suddenly, sitting there in a woman's body, looking at the two of you, became completely unacceptable. I had to become Noah again. I had to come back and reclaim my wife and daughter. But now I know I can't." "Why not? Why can't you? If you really love us, you'd fight for us." Noah shook his head. "I would destroy everything," he said sadly. "I've been declared legally dead. I had a life insurance policy; presumably that has paid out?" Esther nodded and Noah copied the gesture, then continued to explain. "If I were discovered to be alive, that would mean your mum would be accused of insurance fraud, and so would I. We both might go to prison. It would also mean that her marriage to Liam is bigamous, and if the court believed she knew me to be still alive, they would probably convict her of bigamy, too. You would lose your mum, me, Liam, probably the house. You'd end up hating me. So would Brenda and Liam, because they're completely innocent, but they would get dragged down with me. "Then there's Dan and Lucy. Dan would be devastated if he lost Sarah. He absolutely adores her. And poor Lucy, suddenly losing her mother like that, never to be heard of again. How could I bring myself to do exactly the same thing to her as I did to you? "You see, I originally thought that things would work out the way they did first time round. When I became Sarah to begin with, I discovered that she didn't exist when I became Noah again, and no-one had even heard of her. I thought that I could reset everything by coming back, but it hasn't happened that way. I expected to find myself still married to your mother, with nothing more than a big hole in my memory, and some pretty weird stuff filling the gap. I expected that Dan would have married someone else. But no. Everything that's happened over the past seventeen years is still true. "That means my existence is untenable. I am untenable." "Can't you fake a new identity?" "What would be the point of that? And what would I do? I wouldn't be able to use my qualifications without using my real name, and a simple background check would show up that I'm legally deceased. Even if I went to the other end of Australia, it would only be a matter of time before I walked round a corner to see someone going white with shock, and saying, 'My God! I thought you were dead!'" "So what are you going to do?" "I already told you," Noah replied, "I walk through that tunnel for the last time." "And go back to, em, Dan and Lucy." "Yes, and I think," Noah said, hesitating, "I think I'm going back to a pregnancy." "Are you sure? Have you missed your ... you know?" "I'll know in a day or so, I expect. But I just have this ... feeling, or rather, Sarah did. And tonight, we're supposed to be ... never mind. Too much information." Esther stared back wide-eyed, wondering if the image in her father's mind was as bizarre as the one in hers. She was rescued from that thought when Noah laughed softly to himself. It was a strange sound, a small amount of humour mixed with a large amount of bitterness. "What?" "Never got to pee standing up." Esther stared at him in disbelief. "Why does that even matter?" she said derisively, "Strewth, Dad, you'd think that after all the important stuff we've been talking about you'd ... what is it with you blokes and your obsession with being able to do it with your head held high? Is it some kind of male superiority thing? Why don't you go and hose down a tree now, if it's that big a deal?" Noah shook his head sadly. "No, it's not that," he explained. "What you have to understand is, when I was first trapped in Sarah's body, she ... I ... hadn't reached puberty. At that age there was only one difference between myself and a boy." "Kind of hard to ignore, though." "That's true, but the thing is, the difference is hidden. Completely. The only visible signs that I was a girl were voluntary; I could easily have dressed like a boy, had my hair cut short, practised all the right mannerisms. I could have passed myself off as male, no problem, and, when I was away from home, no-one would have had the slightest idea that I was cross-dressing, not at that age. Except myself, of course; I couldn't fool myself. I could do everything a boy could do, except for one thing. And that, when I shut myself in the bathroom and locked the door, was the thing that really hammered home to me what had happened, and the predicament I was in. I used to sit there and cry. Of course, a few months after ... that, my breasts started to develop, and from then on I had a constant, undeniable reminder that I was female. But to begin with ... that .... was what hurt the most." "Wow. Well, I suppose if it gets too much for you, you could always start using one of those funnels." Noah gave a half-hearted laugh, but bowed his head and rested it in his hand. Esther watched him in concern, then laid her hand on his shoulder as it became apparent there were tears on his cheeks. "Look at me," he said, "I'm crying like a sheila." Then, looking sadly at Esther, added, "And why not?" Esther looked back at him sympathetically. It was a while before she responded, "So what now?" "'What now,' is this: I give up. Sarah wins and I lose, and if what you said is true, this really is it. This time next year, the power to choose will be gone, so I guess I'm making a life-changing decision, and I'm dreading it. All I'm doing now is wasting time, because I'm scared to go through with it, and I keep putting the moment off. But it's coming and there's nothing I can do except cling on pointlessly to another few seconds, then another few seconds more, delaying the inevitable ... okay, here goes. God, I'm shaking." Noah stood and took a few steps in the direction of the cave; then he turned to face his daughter, who still sat on the fallen tree. He stood, facing her, looking forlorn, defeated. Her heart went out to him. "What it comes down to is this," he said dejectedly. "I love Brenda. I want to be myself - Noah, her husband, your father. Now that I'm myself again, I want to stay myself. I don't want to be a woman, but there's no way out. I'm trapped. I feel like I'm shut in this room, with the walls closing in on me." On a sudden impulse, Esther ran over to him. She threw her arms around his neck and felt him enclose her in an embrace, and she heard him breathe deeply. Then he held her with their foreheads against each other. "You've no idea how good it feels for a father to hold his daughter in his arms," he said. "It really is the most wonderful thing in the world. I can't ever experience this moment again, but I'll never forget it. Thank you for giving me my one and only chance to have something so special." Slowly and reluctantly, he released her and, turning, walked into the opening of the cave. Esther followed a few steps behind, but only ventured a few metres into the cave, which was close enough to be able to see him remove Sarah's clothes from the storage box. When he began to undress, she backed off and looked away. "I'll see you at the other end," he said. She glanced at him; he was unclothed, but his back was turned, and he had spoken over his shoulder. He was holding Sarah's dress and other garments and the box was closed. Neither moved for what seemed an age. "Esther," Noah said, "I love you. I'm so sorry we can't be together." "Me too," she sobbed, "I would have loved to be your daughter. Dad." There were tears in her eyes and the image of Noah vanishing into the darkness was blurred. **** Esther ran through the trees, around the hill, reaching the other entrance to the tunnel at about the same time as Sarah, and it was a shock to see a woman arrive in place of her father. She again looked away quickly, because Sarah was only just pulling on her first item of clothing; however that brief, accidental glance had finally proven her father's claims to be true: he had most definitely not arrived at the other end as a man. She turned and stared disconsolately at the forest, waiting until Sarah appeared at her shoulder. Then, without a word, they left the cave, never to return; they helped each other over the fence, and began to walk towards Wollonga. Sarah did not look back. "Is this it?" Esther asked, once they had reached her home; she stood with her hand on the gate, with Sarah a few steps away. "Will we ever see each other again?" "We're here for another day," Sarah replied. "Why don't we meet for a coffee or something, tomorrow afternoon? I'll ditch my husband for an hour of two." Esther smiled. "Where?" she asked. "The one on Rockhampton Street, half past two." "Okay. See you then." Sarah watched Esther open the front door; they waved to each other before it was closed. She lingered for a minute or so, looking sadly at the house, and remembering how happy she and her wife had been when they had first moved in; how excited Brenda was when they had discovered it; how delighted she had been to find her Dream Home. Then she turned and walked back towards Wollonga, knowing that she would probably never see that beautiful house, with its white fence, ever again. Chapter 6. Epilogue Sarah was waiting in the coffee shop when Esther arrived. Dan had had no problem with looking after Lucy while his wife went off on her own a second time; last night's passionate lovemaking had left him in such a contented mood that morning, that he would have agreed to almost anything. She waved when she saw the door open and was immediately greeted with a smile. They sat and chatted in a relaxed mood for almost two hours; they exchanged stories about themselves and got to know each other as well as could be expected in such a short time; had they still been father and daughter, the conversation (give or take a few gender-related details on Sarah's part) would not have seemed out of place. Finally it came time to leave, and a reluctance to separate was visible on both faces. "Can't we stay in touch?" Esther asked. "I'll give you my email address," Sarah replied, "but it's best if we don't contact each other just yet. You've only just turned sixteen, so it wouldn't be appropriate for you to be talking to an adult over the internet. People wouldn't understand, and it could be misconstrued. Wait until you're eighteen or nineteen, then email me. I'll reply as soon as I get it." Esther did not look happy, but she nodded in agreement. "And when I go backpacking, I'm going to look you up." "I'd like that." "I want to get you something," Esther said suddenly. There was a jeweller's next door to the coffee shop, and she led the way in. She bought a little silver brooch, shaped like a heart, which she then presented to Sarah, whose eyes misted over as she took it. "Thank you," she whispered, "I'd really like to give you a present too." However, Esther shook her head. "No, you can't," she replied sadly, "it's too late. I'm giving this to my dad, because I know he's still in there somewhere, but if you gave me anything, it would be from Sarah, not from him." Sarah nodded in acknowledgement. She led Esther along the street a little and, in the shelter of a gap between two buildings, discreetly undid two buttons of her blouse. She then pinned the brooch to her bra, but on the inside, where the bridge met one of the cups. "There," she said in satisfaction, "that's where it'll stay. In the hospital we're not always allowed to wear jewellery, but we are allowed underwear. This way, I'll always be able to feel it, and therefore, so will your dad." "Yeah, he will," Esther replied nonchalantly. "He'll be able to feel it against his left breast." They both giggled, then, suddenly serious, fell into each other's arms, holding tight and not wanting to let go. Finally, each was forced to admit to herself that they would have to part eventually. "You were right," Esther said as she straightened up, "It's not quite the same, it it?" "No," Sarah replied, "the extra pair of boobs kind of spoils it." All that remained was for the two women to exchange a last disconsolate smile. "This it," they were both thinking. They hugged once more, then turned and walked out of each other's lives.