A hex and a missing child
In which the only explanation for various manageable disasters is a hex
Three friends and I have been gathering evidence for months now in support of our theory that someone has put a hex on us.
It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact timeline but I believe we were enjoying an especially glorious Sydney summer right up until the beginning of February. It has been many years since a glorious Sydney summer. They used to roll around every year, always welcomed but always taken for granted, mostly because they rolled around every year. Then at the end of 2019 ash and smoke coated the city as bush, houses and 1 billion animals burned around us. The following two summers were marked by constant rain from La Nina and various lockdowns and border closures, as well as constant anxiety, caused by Covid-19.
The rain was more crazy-making than the global health pandemic tbh.
But last summer things looked up, the pandemic continued, but the rain finally stopped. The four of us were on rooftops with cocktails, we were at the beach in the salt water, we were doing what we were put on this earth to: hang out.
In February the heat became oppressive, the city became a swamp and we started to go down one by one. Work intensified, unreasonable demands were put on some of us, we got sick, more than one of us even got wisdom teeth infections. Each month since we have proclaimed the hex lifting only to have a litany of misfortunes from random verbal abuse to an actual death.
“It’s the hex again,” we say solemnly as menstruation lasted more than 20 days, as one of us sat in emergency at the hospital, as job offers fell through. We were at the centre of the world and the world was messed up.
**
Last June my husband got a new job. It’s been a great move overall but discombobulating to be brought back to an annual leave balance of zero after 15 years at the same company. We’ve tag teamed time off with the kids and finally had leave at the same time for the first time in 11 months. We were going to his hometown to see his parents who live quite far away and still work full-time, so it had been many months since they had seen their grandchildren.
The night before annual leave officially started and we were due to fly out my husband tested positive for Covid-19 for the first time ever. The trip was canned and I took to looking after two children myself during school holidays while he isolated.
The power of the hex!!!!!!
I did not have a reasonable and adult reaction. The less said about my petulant tendencies the better though.
The next day I took my five year old to the local shopping centre for groceries and chemist supplies. A sale in a clothes shop caught my eye and despite my son’s vocal opposition I entered. He pulled the hood up on his jumper and leaned against the doorway, depressed. I spotted a gorgeous pink and red swimsuit for my niece. I knew it would make me feel better.
When I turned from the checkout after paying for it my son was not leaning against the doorway. A small knot of anxiety formed in the pit of my stomach, but I quickly dissolved it.
He’s not a runner.
He would not be far.
He was not sitting outside the shop.
I looked towards the chemist and the other way towards Big W. Big W was further away but it was also his favourite place so I figured it was my best bet. I was not panicking.
I asked the employee at the door if she had noticed a small boy walk in by himself. She was a friendly woman, more than 50 years old, with a cautious air about her that meant she took missing children seriously.
I was not panicking.
“You should go to central management if you don’t find him here,” she said.
He was not in the lego section, the most likely location.
I walked out of Big W and the nice woman gave me a slightly alarmed look. I walked to the other end of the centre checking all those toy car rides that you put $3 in for kids and which I passionately believe should be illegal.
I checked the claw machine filled with soft toys, which I also passionately believe should be illegal. I had told him we were going to the chemist so I asked the security man at the door if he had seen a small boy come in by himself. His no was emphatic.
I checked the food court.
I could not find my son.
I thought of how friendly and unafraid of the world my son is, how he had just caught a plane by himself to see my mum and how he was realising he needed me less. I thought of how he would react to a stranger who took him by the hand. I thought of how he sees the world as an exciting and open place.
How the week before a boy twice his size had turned a water cannon on him on purpose, for the thrill of shocking my son and how betrayed my son had looked, disbelief that someone could be mean at all, and specifically to him.
(I also thought of how his younger, much smaller, much fiercer brother had been infuriated at the attack. Had marched over to the other water cannon and immediately turned it on the boy to punish him for attacking his beloved older brother. How the older boy had seemed genuinely baffled about what to do about being attacked by a 2.5 year old who looks like a cherub who has flown out of a Boticelli painting)
I pushed away thoughts about how easily led away my son could be and I went to centre management.
The man at the desk casually yelled down the hallway “Bill! This lady has lost her kid”.
A small team quickly assembled, a gruff but kind man called Bill asked me the details and put out an announcement on the centre’s speakers. Then they dispersed to do their own sweep of the centre. I went with a woman with blonde hair pulled into a low ponytail and heavy black glasses. Together we searched Big W again and she asked them to put an announcement on their internal speakers. She asked me how long he had been missing and when I responded it was almost 30 minutes her eyes widened.
She hurried with me to check the food court and pointed to a kid in a dark blue jumper leaning against his mother.
“That’s not him is it?”
I shook my head.
“We can go back and check the security footage,” she said. “I think we should do that. It’s been a while.”
“I think he might be getting upset by now,” I said. “Surely someone will notice him crying.”
“He’s five years old,” the woman said reassuringly. “Five year olds usually start to get very upset about 20 minutes after losing their mum.”
Nothing will be helped if you panic, I sternly told myself.
If he stays missing I am going to get so much attention I thought. Would it be crass to wear lipstick in the tearful appeals for my boy????
We hurried back to the office and every time I heard her hand radio crackle my heart was in my mouth. And each time it was someone saying they still hadn’t found him.
In the office an elegant woman with long straight black hair in a caramel coat emerged. “What is happening?” she asked.
“We have a missing child,” the other woman replied.
“What does he look like?”
He’s five with a light blue hoodie and brown hair, his name is Hamish, I said for what felt like the 80th time.
I was led back to Bill’s office.
“We were just going to see if we could look at the security footage,” the woman who had led me around told him.
“Yes,” I’ll get it up. Bill’s walkie talkie crackled and a broken message came through.
“Can you repeat that?” Bill said looking at me.
“He’s not in Aldi,” came the voice.
Bill clicked on his computer where about 16 different squares showed different angles all over the centre. He clicked on the one showing the outside of the shop where I last saw Hamish.
“When did he go missing?” he asked.
“I looked at my receipt, it was 12.20pm,” I said.
Bill looked at the clock and his eyes widened. It was 12.55pm. I got the impression people usually came here about their missing children sooner than 20 minutes.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” Bill said. “But we are getting close to the time when we should call the police.”
The store camera he had clicked on the computer wouldn’t load.
“I don’t know why this isn’t working,” he said. “I’ll get it to work and we’ll have a look and then call the police.”
I looked at the blue circle on the computer load again. And then again.
“I’m just going to run downstairs and check the chemist again,” I said helplessly. He nodded.
“When you get back we will have this working,” he said.
I ran down the stairs and straight into the pharmacy, which was actually a warehouse-style space with multiple aisles. I roamed up and down them, a man who was part of the central management search party saw me and turned down another aisle without saying anything. I knew he must’ve already lapped the entire thing.
I briefly allowed myself to think in an indulgent way about my sweet son. That morning he had been playing with transformers he had built out of lego. He got them to pray together.
I don’t need a true catastrophe, I have come close enough before, I don't need a reminder of what is valuable in my life, I thought grumpily to myself.
If he stays missing I am going to be in the most enormous amount of trouble with my mum, I thought.
I went back upstairs and saw it was 12.58pm. 40 minutes. Nothing is helped by you panicking, I sternly told myself.
I walked to the back of the office, to the room with Bill and the monitors and saw his screen was still loading. Could they not load the footage to see which direction my son walked in?
Then a mobile phone rang.
“Yes? …. Hmmmm …. Really? Ha! …. You found him!”
Of course they found him. You knew that was going to happen.
He was found by the woman in the elegant brown coat at the self checkout in Woolworths trying to buy a single green apple with no money. She asked him his name and he said “Hamish”, then she asked where his mum was and he shrugged before turning back to the self checkout “dunno” came his uninterested reply.
The entirety of Woolworths!! And he chose a single green apple!!
40 minutes without me and yet still sure I would turn up!!
I guess he was right, I did turn up eventually.
**
My husband isolating with covid, a child missing for 40 minutes, this was all more evidence of the hex. My dad rang me that evening to sympathise. He’s a dad, he knows how long 40 minutes is. I told him about the theory of the hex and listed all the calamities that had befallen my friends and I since the start of the year, family fights, illness, job stress, inconveniences and ultimately manageable disasters, money troubles, landlord troubles, even friendship troubles.
When I finished the quite long list, my dad, always loving but never indulgent, paused to think.
“I think that’s just life Bridie,” he finally said.
that is such a Chris comment…
Out of curiosity, what colour lip stick would you go with?
The pace and tension of this post was the perfect antidote to the funk I found myself in following a force-finish fiction read.
Thanks!