Dead Heart
Gracie can still see bits of Molly: her sunburnt skin; her near-black eyes, always scanning everyone and everything; her straight hair, marking her as half-caste.
All she can remember of her family now are these few disjointed images. Long ago the rest was stripped away by "good Christians" and "well-meaning" politicians, and the whipping she recieved upon her return to Moore River. She doesn't know their names anymore, or their language, or even if they're alive.
She's forgotten the feel of sun-hardened clay turning to sand beneath her feet, running so fast that the brush blurred and she knew what it must be like for the rabbits as they dodged bullets along the fence.
But there are times she thinks she sees her cousins, just on the edge of her vision, so close she could touch them if only she could see them clearly. And in every siren, every train whistle, she still hears her mother's grieving wail.