63. Reconnaissance

Mrs. Kennedy is deep in thought while sitting in the sitting room crocheting. The warm sun rays caress her through the window and with her crocheting and knitting it helps to alleviate the biting tension that nowadays constantly gnaws at her stomach. She dearly misses the chitchats with her clients in town. She wonders what has happened to them. Maybe she will never see them again! She is compelled to hole up here with Robert, her recluse brother and his friend, Hunter, on the smallholding. Robert has for many years been the caretaker of the property. He lives alone in his wooden hut deeper into the dense blue gum woods where he hides from the community as a hermit. He withdrew from society after he had almost been killed as a teenager. That fatal day he visited his nephew and slept over when his uncle killed his whole family in a gruesome family murder. He was left for dead with his throat cut. He lost his vocal cords and also his one eye and over his glass eye now runs a horrible sc