Excerpt of The Red Heart by Isabelle Rowan

A DUSTY green station wagon sat at the side of the desert road. It had half a tank of fuel, the radiator was full, and the car would start if the key was turned in the ignition. But still it sat there while the sun sank orange and red below the never ending horizon.

Daniel Evans sat on the roof of the station wagon he'd stolen from his twin brother. There was no malice in the theft. Quite the opposite. He loved his brother and knew his love was returned, so after a very long conversation that had stretched late into the night, Daniel knew Steven would understand him "borrowing" the car.

The last arch of the sun shimmered, then disappeared, leaving a final glow to radiate from the horizon and slowly fade until the stars shone through. Daniel lay back. The roof of the car buckled, but popped back into shape. It was hot through the thin fabric of his T–shirt and burned the exposed skin of his arms, but Daniel didn't care. It was good to feel something.

The air cooled quickly under the cloudless night sky. Daniel raised his hand and stared at the stars through his silhouetted fingers. He couldn't remember there ever being that many stars. The fingers closed and opened again around the half moon. It was the same moon he saw every night in Melbourne, except that night, it seemed a little lost in the endless expanse of stars. Daniel closed his hand into a fist and sat up.

The road stretched in front of him, straight, unbroken, until it was swallowed by the night.

Daniel slid down to the hood, then swung his long legs over to stand beside the car. He leaned in through the driver's side window and turned the key enough to reignite the headlights. The beams lit up the asphalt and reflected off the broken white line. He walked to the front of the car and stared at his elongated shadow. It looked as wrong as he'd felt for a very long time.

"Tomorrow," he muttered, got into the driver's seat, and turned the car back to the small town at the edge of the desert.



"HEY luv, back again? I'm pleased you decided not to tackle the drive tonight. Very wise. Take the same room, and I'll have the key waiting for you at reception when you're ready to go up," Maeve, the elderly pub owner, said from behind the bar. "Can I tempt you with dinner this time?" She lifted a menu with its very short list of counter meals and smiled.

"No thank you," Daniel said politely. "Just an orange juice, please."

"You know you're not going to last long out there if we don't get some meat on your bones," she teased, but Daniel just smiled and counted out the money for his drink.

The few other patrons watched him walk to a table in a corner. Their pub was the last one before a big stretch of desert road, so they were used to the occasional visitor, but not ones that looked like Daniel. With his Goth–pale skin, long straight blue–black hair, and myriad of tattoos, he attracted few looks on the streets of Melbourne, but just over the border of the Northern Territory, he might as well have been from another planet.

"Escaped from a horror movie," he heard one mutter but didn't take offense. That was exactly what he looked like compared to the leather–skinned old men nursing beers at the bar.

"That's enough of that, Bill. Each to their own," Maeve scolded as she walked past him with Daniel's juice. "Ignore them. They gossip like old women at times."

Daniel smiled and took the drink. The juice was sharp on his tongue and chilled the path to his empty belly, but he quickly downed half the glass.

The old men lost interest in the weird guy from the city as soon as Maeve put a set of darts in front of them and announced, "The winner gets free drinks for the rest of the night."

Daniel leaned back against the wall and began to watch their game, with its good–natured ribbing and a whole lot of cheating. By the call for a "double twenty," the chatter had dissolved into background buzz and Daniel's focus wavered. Faces of the players lost their definition and the melody of a song he sang at school seduced his lids shut and dragged him into a dream of dancing brolgas and bandicoots.... We'll have to jog along, it's getting late....

The line from the song echoed and became more insistent.

"Come on, luv. It's late."

Daniel blinked and looked up at the barmaid. "I'm sorry, I...."

"You look done in. I think it might be time to head upstairs to your room. Your key is still at reception."

The old men were back at the bar, their game over. Daniel straightened up in his seat, his head still so full of clouds that he stared blindly into the room, not realizing he was looking directly at a man eagerly shovelling a last forkful of shepherd's pie into his mouth. The man looked up and, still chewing, shot him a cheeky wink.

Daniel stared for another few seconds, not quite comprehending that he was awake, then forced his lips into an embarrassed smile before looking away. He leaned forward onto the table and scrubbed his hands over his face until the threads of thoughts connected into coherent patterns.

Finally the promise of clean sheets and a soft mattress dragged him to his feet. His first step was a little shaky, but Daniel knew it was simply the toll of the long–haul drive, and if he made it up the stairs, he might actually sleep an entire night.

The door lock was the next challenge, and Daniel's numb fingers fumbled with the old–fashioned key. It missed the lock, then didn't seem to match the tumblers once it was in. He'd managed it earlier, but in his exhausted state, the lock and the door to his room at The Drover's Arms seemed to conspire against him. Daniel's forehead fell against the metal number on the door; the point of the "one" jabbed into his skin. He took a tired breath.

"Jiggle it," a voice said from behind. "It's an old building and gets cranky."

Startled, Daniel staggered back a step, but the other man merely smiled and tried the lock. With a little wiggle of the key and push of the door, it opened.

"There you go. Sleep well, mate—you look like you need it." Another wink and the man continued on his way down the corridor.

Daniel watched until he turned the corner, then stepped into his room. He mustered the last of his energy to tackle the long laces of his Doc Marten boots and the grip of his tight jeans before falling onto the bed.

It took a minute or two for the tension in his muscles to let go. The mental image of himself deflating inch by inch slowly gave his body permission to relax. Toes first, then feet, legs, hips... the clench of his gut was more stubborn. Daniel filled his lungs with air and slowly exhaled. Repeat it if you need to. Daniel did as he'd been taught and enough of the knots unravelled so that he slowly sank into the mattress.

He hadn't slept the night before. Arguments and promises fought for attention in his thoughts, only to be usurped by fear. Fear that he wouldn't succeed, and fear that he would.

Don't start this again. Tension crept back into his body. Daniel forced his thoughts out to the road. The long unending stretch of asphalt bordered on both sides by the low scrub of the desert; not red yet, but that would come. The childhood refrain was there again in his head as he mentally travelled the road and "The Drover's Dream" lulled him to sleep.