The old brick schoolhouse in Warracknabeal still
stood, its windows fogged with dust and time.
Thomas Hargreaves, now sixtytwo, stepped through
the front door, his shoes crunching on gravel
that had not changed since he was a boy. The air
smelled of chalk and damp wood, and for a moment,
it felt like 1968 again. But something was wrong—
his memory of that year had vanished, leaving
only gaps and a strange, familiar ache.
He’d been summoned by his estranged daughter,
Lillian, who ran the local museum. She’d found a
photo of him standing beside a group of students
in 1968, but he couldn’t remember any of them.
His mind played tricks: a face here, a name
there, but nothing solid. The town had changed
little, though—same red dirt roads, same pub
with the cracked sign, same annual footy match
at the oval. Yet beneath the surface, something
else had shifted.
The rule: no one could speak of 1968. It was as
if the year had been erased from the town’s
history. Lillian warned him against digging too
deep. “Some things are better left buried,” she
said, her voice tight. He didn’t listen.
In the museum archives, he found a file marked
Hargreaves, T. – 1968. Inside were newspaper
clippings, a missing persons report, and a
single photograph of a young Indigenous boy,
barefoot and wideeyed, staring into the camera.
The boy’s name was Billy Koori. The report
stated he had disappeared during a school trip.
No trace of him had ever been found.
Thomas remembered now—not all of it, but enough.
He had been the headmaster then, and he had
blamed himself. Billy had been his student, and
Thomas had failed him. The town had turned on
him, calling him a coward for not pressing
harder. He’d fled, taking the memory with him.
The rule had been enforced by the council: no
one would talk about Billy, no one would
question what happened. The town had moved on,
but the silence had festered. Now, with the past
resurfacing, the rule began to crack.
Thomas confronted the current headmaster, a man
named Clive, who had inherited the school after
Thomas left. Clive refused to answer questions
about Billy, but his hands trembled when he saw
the photo. That night, Thomas found Clive in the
staff room, drinking alone, and forced the truth
out of him.
Billy had drowned in the river behind the school.
Thomas had known, but he hadn’t acted. He’d let
the town bury the boy, just as they had buried
him.
The final beat came at the riverbank, where
Thomas stood with the photo in hand, the wind
howling through the gum trees. He dropped the
photo into the water, watching it sink. The
silence of the town broke that morning—someone
posted a letter on the community board, someone
spoke Billy’s name aloud. The rule had been
broken, and with it, the weight Thomas had
carried for forty years.
He left Warracknabeal that afternoon, the memory
of Billy still with him, but no longer a burden.
