The Legend of the cloud maze
I wrote a short story called The Legend of the Cloud Maze for a contest calling for stories under 1500 words with the theme of clouds. The main characters are two cousins, Bell and Millie. The story was told from Millie's point of view. After I submitted the story, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to explore what Bell made of the story, so I wrote a second part. This wasn't for the competition, but just for fun. The combined result, with comments by me, is below. I can't persuade this site to let me do proper indented paragraphs, so the story is in block.
Two cousins, one modified Kombi, and an old legend… Bell and Millie used to know one another all too well. Now they’re grown up but has anything really changed?
Take 1: Millie’s View
Millie finished her Vegemite sandwich and scrumpled the paper, her gaze riveted to the super-sized screen on her cousin’s phone.
She hardly believed what she saw. Coincidence? Fate saying hello?
Now or not at all.
“I know a legend about this place.” She stabbed her finger against the map on the screen.
The screen dimpled from the pressure of her fingernail, and she hastily withdrew her hand. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Your talons don’t know their own strength,” said Bell. “One day you’ll stab straight through into the screen. A stray pixel will take up residence in your fingernail.”
“I hope not.” Millie examined her nail.
“Then it will burrow into your cuticle and head for your brain and influence your decisions,” Bell said in a sepulchral voice. She paused, making twilight zone wiggles with her fingers and scattering incidental crumbs. “Like those ants that get piloted about by fungus, or maybe flatworms. Goodbye brain cells.” Then she said, in her normal tone, “Teasing you’s too easy, Millstone. So, what’s this legend?”
“It’s about the Cloud Maze of Cirrus Castle,” Millie said.
“Hm?” Bell’s clear brow wrinkled.
“I thought you’d heard of everything.”
“Nearly everything,” Bell said.
“The castle’s on an island in Cloud Bay. The legend goes back for generations.”
Bell wrinkled her erudite roman nose and bit another neat semi-circle out of her salad sandwich. “Hello! You do know any castle in Australia is a fake, right, Millstone?”
“This one’s real.”
“Real castles are hundreds of years old. If they’re not, they’re fakes or Victorian follies.”
“It’s real.” Millie leaned back. It was Bell’s turn to drive the modified Kombi, so she was lady-of-leisuring, with her seat tilted and her feet free of shoes. She dabbed at a Vegemite spot on her retro-paisley patterned sleeve. How had that got there? She’d been so careful.
“Spill.” Bell ate the last bite of mayo-soaked crust, balled up her sandwich wrapper and tossed it into the bin two metres beyond the van window. “Bullseye! Beat that.”
“You know I can’t.” Millie stuffed her detritus into the cooler bag for later disposal.
Bell, cool and spotless in a sleeveless lemon top and white shorts, peered at the phone. “Cloud Bay?”
“Yes.”
Bell tapped the screen. “May as well swing by to see this famous real castle of yours.”
She clonked the phone into the hands-free holder, facing Millie, and started the engine.
Millie peered at her fingernail again for a few seconds. Was that Vegemite? She sucked it experimentally.
“Now you’ve swallowed the stray pixel,” Bell intoned. “While we wait for your tummy to light up like a sword swallower—”
“What?” Millie mumbled around her fingertip.
Bell smiled sideways. “I read about a sword swallower who got tired of being accused of using trick swords. He swallowed a neon tube. Lit up like the Bridge on New Year’s Eve. But go on. Amaze me with this legend.”
Millie folded her hands to keep them out of mischief. Bell knew about neon tubes, flatworms and pixels. She didn’t know about the Legend of the Cloud Maze. Millie could almost guarantee that.
Now was the time to enlighten her.
“Okay. Cirrus Castle had belonged to the Cloud family forever. They went on living there long after castles went out of fashion. They looked after the Cloud Maze planted in the gardens. It was boxwood, which lived for centuries.”
“Buxus,” said Bell.
She would.
“Strangers sometimes entered the maze and not all of them came out as they went in.”
“And?” Bell prompted.
“Well, after it happened a few times, the legend started that—”
“Someone had been murderated?”
“No.”
“Someone had locked up their mad granny in the gazebo?”
“No.”
“Someone—”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously—”
“I am. But with you stopping all the time, my brain gets bored and fills in the gaps.”
“That’s not stopping. That’s significant pausing.”
“Oh, go on, do.”
“The legend started that people were meeting up in the maze and…”
“Dy—”
“Bell! Let me tell it!” Verbalising the tale was unexpectedly difficult.
Bell zipped her lips.
“People were meeting up in the maze and not coming out until morning. Then they
came out as…ah-ah! No, you don’t!”
“I didn’t say a thing,” Bell protested.
“You inspirated. Or expirated.”
“I have to breathe.”
Because this was undeniable, Millie let it stand.
“They came out as couples,” she said.
Bell frowned. “So? I expect they went in there for a bit of privacy.”
“No! They went in there as totally single strangers and came out joined at the hip and
lips to lips. That was how it was told. And all they would say was The clouds made us do it.”
“But that doesn’t explain properly.”
“They couldn’t explain properly.”
“What clouds made them do it?”
“The clouds that hovered among the hedges.” Hadn’t she mentioned those? Maybe not.
“Where did the clouds come from? Heaven?”
“They were a natural pheromone…” Millie frowned because that didn’t sound right.
“Phenomenon,” Bell supplied.
“That. It happened because the maze had channels of water running alongside the paths and the hedges were very thick. The vapour made clouds. Even rainbows, sometimes.”
“That doesn’t explain how you think a fake castle on an island in Cloud Bay has anything to do with a legendary maze somewhere in the UK. That’s just daft.”
Millie frowned. Surely the answer was obvious to someone of Bell’s superior intellect—the intellect that would see its owner plunge into a Bachelor of Something-or-other studies at the end of their gap-six-months? Millie herself would be interning at Fancies on the Beach.
She watched the sheep-dotted scenery slide by. “Forget it.”
Bell drove in silence for a few kilometres. “Sorry?” she offered.
Millie breathed deeply.
“Sorry with chocolate sprinkles and macadamias?”
Millie sat up. “Where?”
“When we get to an ice cream shop. So— tell me about this connection between these two castles.”
“It’s one castle. That’s the point. The Cloud family lived in the castle until sometime in the 1880s when there was an earth tremor that damaged the foundations. They wanted to fix it but were advised that the best thing was to pull it down and rebuild it elsewhere.”
“But that would take—”
“It’s a small castle,” Millie said, raising her voice. “No one wanted even a small castle in their village, so they emigrated to Australia, castle and all. Every stone block had a number painted on it. I suppose you could call it a kit-castle.”
Bell was quiet, probably digesting this. Then she said, “Maybe I have read something about it… It was probably in that article about weird buildings… Paronella Park, and the Settler’s Hut and the Herbig Tree and so on.”
Millie huffed. Typical. Bell has to know everything.
“All right. I accept it’s a real ancient castle,” Bell said. “But what about the Cloud Maze?”
“They emigrated the Cloud Maze too,” Millie said. “That is, they took cuttings from the original plants along with a plan of the maze. They stuck them in a wardrobe on the ship.”
“You mean a Wardian Case,” Bell corrected.
“Maybe. When they got to Australia, they dibbed on the island and rebuilt Cirrus Castle and replanted the Cloud Maze and there it is to this day.”
“And this day we’re going to visit it!” Bell said. “The Clouds will have brochures or literature about it so we can get the properly documented facts.”
Documented facts? Didn’t I just tell her the documented facts?
“The family died out. The last one, Mildred Cloud, was engaged to a man called John Beauregard. They met in the maze and came out engaged, then he went into the army. He died at Gallipoli. Mildred went into the maze lots more times, but she never came out as half a couple again. It only works once.”
“Let’s hope whoever lives there now has some properly accurate info,” Bell said. “Or—Millstone, do a seek-me on my phone, will you? Put Mildred Cloud, Cirrus Castle and the Legend of the Cloud Maze in the search field.”
“Oh no. Not after what you said about your pixels being out to get me.”
Bell laughed. “Oh, Millstone! Can’t you tell when someone’s having you on?”
“You can do it later,” Millie said. “And can you tell?”
“I’m not credulous,” Bell said. She didn’t even sound smug.
Millie curled against the seat. “Wake me when we get there.”
Bell drove on, occasionally speculating on facts versus hearsay.
Millie smiled to herself, half watching as the kilometres clicked down on their detour to Cloud Bay.
She wondered if there was a way to the island, and if there was a structure there. She wondered if there was even an island.
Of course there was. She had put it there. Virtually speaking.
Bell would look up the keywords on her phone and find it right enough. Legend of the Cloud Maze, by Millie Stone. It had an ISBN and everything!
End of original story. Now for my comments before we go to part 2.
SO?This was going to be a perfectly ordinary fantasy story to enter in the Clouds contest. I realised it was getting too long, so I changed tracks and tweaked the beginning to bring it under the required 1500 words. It is now not a fantasy, but a tale of two cousins, one of whom effortlessly outshines the other. Bell doesn’t like the slow and disjointed way Millie tells the story of the legend and she’s not keen on Millie knowing something she doesn’t. And that’s it. If the story was retold from Bell’s POV… well! Bell shall go to the ball! Read on and discover Bell’s View
Take 2: Bell’s ViewBell Keyes was enjoying her salad sandwich, savouring texture and flavour—umm, mustard seeds— while she idly flicked through the maps on her phone, auditioning different routes to encompass maximum examples of scenery and places of interest vs the minimum expenditure of petrol and angst.
There was no use asking her cousin Millie’s opinion. Dear old Millstone was a ditherer and just a wee bit slo--
Bell stopped the thought before it could materialise. It didn’t do to be cruel. As her parents had told her on more than one occasion, with the terrible patience of two geniuses lowering themselves to address a child’s emotional intelligence, she had been born with Nat/Van. This, she learned, was private short-speak for natural advantages. It meant she was genetically, culturally and situationally gifted.
This, as her parents were wont to point out, was nothing to be smug about. It was a scientific fact, not something for which she could take any credit.
Being Nat/Van brought unearned perks. Unearned by Bell, anyway. Maybe some of her ancestors had made deliberate choices that culminated in her. Being Nat/Van also had its drawbacks.
Her parents had advised her that she was going to find it difficult to fit into the average peer group and must be vigilant about causing offence and courting enmity by being seen to feel superior.
This had proved itself true.
“Does that mean I ought to get things wrong on purpose?” she’d asked, stinging from a chorus of You think you’re so smart from the eight-year-old proto tween queens of Hillmont Primary.
On no account. She must perform to her true potential while recognising that others might also be performing to theirs which might not be quite...
Whatever they were not quite had never been revealed. Her clear-spoken, clear-eyed, Nat/Van parents had stumbled in a morass of contradiction.
Be truthful. Be diplomatic. State facts. Colour them kindly.
Bell forgave them.
One had to make allowances.
They’d never seen fit to provide her with a sibling for companionship, but maybe it wouldn’t have worked anyway. It hadn’t for her mother and Aunt Bec.
A crumpling sound jerked her out of her musing, and she glanced across at Millie, who had finished her Vegemite sandwich and screwed up the paper bag.
Her pale blue eyes, curiously wide-apart like Aunt Bec’s, seemed to stare fixedly at the phone screen. In fact, they seemed about ready to jump out of their sockets.
Bell smiled enquiringly. It seemed Millie had something she wanted to say. Maybe she did have an opinion about the best route?
Speed didn’t much matter—they were taking a gap six months because Bell’s accelerated university course wasn’t offered until May and Millie’s internship in some harbour-side business or other had been postponed on humanitarian grounds when the former intern’s forthcoming promised job was withdrawn. Former Intern needed to be reinstated as Current Intern until another job was sourced… and that meant postponing Intern Elect. Or something like that. It had to do with government grants.
Wandering around the country for a while in Millie’s mum’s old Kombi while they waited for their futures to get taken off hold had seemed a no-brainer.
They’d always got along okay as kids. Bell’s year of seniority had been enough to keep the balance working in her favour while maintaining the fiction that she got better marks and hit more milestones because she was older.
“Look after Millie,” their mums had always chorused, and she had.
They hadn’t seen much of one another since entering separate high schools a year apart, and less still since finishing their compulsory education.
Bell raised her eyebrows, waiting for Millie’s input on the matter of preferred routes, but when it came it was oddly unexpected.
“I know a legend about this place,” Millie blurted. She stabbed her finger against the map on the screen.
She’d been growing her nails and experimenting with decals for some reason, and her forefinger’s nail briefly dinted the gel-LED screen.
Millie snatched her hand away as if the contact had burned her. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Your talons don’t know their own strength,” said Bell.
Because Millie was looking wide-eyed and a bit blankly feral, she continued, “One day you’ll stab straight through into the screen. A stray pixel will take up residence in your fingernail.”
“I hope not.” Millie actually examined her nail, drawing her barely-there brows together.
“It will burrow into your cuticle and head for your brain and influence your decisions,” Bell continued, inspired. She paused, waggling her fingers as the Twilight Zone theme played in her head.
“Like those ants that get piloted about by fungus, or maybe flatworms,” she continued. “Goodbye brain cells.”
Millie stared at her, positively bug-eyed.
Bell relented. “Teasing you’s too easy, Millstone. So, what’s this legend you know?”
“It’s about the Cloud Maze of Cirrus Castle,” Millie said in an oddly strong voice. It was almost as if she’d been rehearsing, but that was nonsense. She couldn’t have known the map would show whatever random landmark she’d fixed on.
It was the merest chance that they were right here, right now. Faced with a branch in the road as they left Camber, Bell had tossed a coin that morning.
Then her cousin’s words soaked into Bell’s mind. She bit her tongue to prevent herself from repeating… the Cloud Maze of Cirrus Castle. It sounded as if it ought to be familiar, but a quick sift through her mind-repository came up empty.
“Hm?”
“I thought you’d heard of everything.” Millie sounded triumphantly reproachful—if that was a thing.
“Only nearly everything,” Bell said drily.
Millie returned doggedly to her recitation—if that’s what it was. “The castle’s on an island in Cloud Bay. The legend goes back for generations.”
Cloud Bay was certainly a feature of the map that had been up before the screen died from lack of attention. Bell wrinkled her nose and ate another bite of her salad sandwich which was beginning to feel a bit damp and so was better in than out. She was trying… she was truly trying… not to be unkind.
Nat/Van. Nat/Van. Nat/Van. Gulp.
Yet it burst out anyway. Maybe a couple of weeks and counting of undiluted Millstone was more than anyone could face with equanimity. “Hello! You do know any castle in Australia is a fake, right, Millstone?”
“This one’s real,” said Millie.
“Real castles are hundreds of years old,” educated Bell. “If they’re not, they’re fakes or Victorian follies.”
Surely Millie knew that? Bell thought she’d known it forever… or at least since she’d excitedly pointed out a turreted structure during a road trip with her father and mother when she was seven. Is that a castle?
No, they’d informed her. Princess Pearl’s Palace just looked like a castle. It was a tourist trap, and they would not be encouraging that sort of thing. They’d call at the Crocodilia Museum or the Techspace instead.
Her lecture, almost kindly meant, had no effect. Her cousin merely repeated her assertation that the castle at Cloud Bay was real. Then she leaned back in the seat and seemed transfixed by the rather ugly brownish-pinkish paisley pattern of her shirt.
“Spill,” Bell said, to get her attention. She popped the last piece of sandwich into her mouth and scored a bullseye with her paper bag in the bin outside the van.
“Bullseye! Beat that,” she said, reverting briefly to childhood.
“You know I can’t.” Millie tidied away her crumpled bag.
Bell woke up the phone. “Cloud Bay?” she questioned, to make sure she had it right.
“Yes.”
Bell grinned, tapping the screen to orient the map. “May as well swing by to see this famous real castle of yours.” It might be entertaining and she was positively not going to mock her cousin when they reached an artful purpose-build ruin, or someone’s whimsical notion of a house. It was unfair to mock and besides, she remembered how disappointed she’d been when the awesome turrets of dreams she’d spotted at seven had been ever-so-kindly debunked in favour of Techspace which had turned out to be chatty and educational without a single awe about it.
She set the phone down in its holder—it would be too humiliating to be pulled over by the phone-police—and started the van. She had to hand it to Aunt Bec. Her vehicle was old, but she’d kept it serviced and reliable and even made modifications for comfort and practicality. It was lightweight and fair on petrol, and the saving on accommodation and ability to make or refrigerate meals during their road trip outweighed its mumsy vibe. The painting of a duck with her ducklings traipsing across the rear door was regrettable, but Aunt Bec had always had a weird artistic streak of eccentricity.
Out of the corner of her eye, Bell saw Millie sucking her finger.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
“Now you’ve swallowed the stray pixel,” she said. “While we wait for your tummy to light up like a sword swallower—”
“What?” Millie sounded fuzzy.
Bell pulled out of the layby, straightened onto the highway and glanced at her cousin. “I read about a sword swallower who got tired of being accused of using trick swords. He swallowed a neon tube. Lit up like the Bridge on New Year’s Eve. But go on. Amaze me with this legend.”
Millie folded her hands.
Recitation, insisted Bell’s mind.
But why? She heard Millie inhale and saw her posture shift just a bit.
Definitely, recitation.
“Okay,” Millie said in a no-nonsense diction, followed by another big breath. “Cirrus Castle had belonged to the Cloud family forever. They went on living there long after castles went out of fashion. They looked after the Cloud Maze in the gardens. It was boxwood, which lived for centuries.”
“Buxus,” put in Bell, before she could stop herself.
Millie hardly acknowledged the correction. “Strangers sometimes entered the maze and not all of them came out as they went in.”
“And?” Bell prompted, wondering at the peculiar emphasis.
“Well, after it happened a few times, the legend started that—”
“Someone had been murderated?”
“No.”
“Someone had locked up their mad granny in the gazebo?”
“No.”
“Someone—”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously—”
“I am,” Bell assured her cousin. “But with you stopping all the time, my brain gets bored and fills in the gaps.”
Millie managed to look affronted. “That’s not stopping. That’s significant pausing.”
“Oh, go on, do,” Bell said. She wanted to make winding up motions with her fingers, but she had to keep her hands on the wheel and harrying people with slower—er, differently paced—minds was unkind.
After a few seconds which dragged interminably for Bell, Millie went on. “The legend started that people were meeting up in the maze and…” She paused yet again to collect herself.
“Dying.” Bell couldn’t help it. She wanted to expand into zombism, batification or amazement, but her cousin snapped back.
“Bell! Let me tell it!”
Bell zipped her lips ostentatiously, and bit gently but firmly on the insides of them to keep herself silent.
“People were meeting up in the maze and not coming out until morning,” Millie went on with a rush. “Then they came out as…ah-ah! No, you don’t!”
“I didn’t say a thing,” Bell protested, releasing her lips in her own defence.
“You inspirated. Or expirated.”
“I have to breathe.”
Millie grumbled almost audibly. “They came out as couples,” she said.
Again, the odd emphasis seemed stronger than the words warranted. Bell frowned. The pause went on and this time, Millie seemed to be waiting for a response.
Bell made one. “So? I expect they went in there for a bit of privacy.” She had never hooked up with a guy in a maze—had, in fact, never been in one— but she supposed it was a good place if one wanted to avoid intrusive friends or relatives.
“No!” Millie said with vigour. “They went in there as totally single strangers and came out joined at the hip and lips to lips. That was how it was told.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bell saw her cousin give three sharp nods as if she was agreeing with herself.
“And all they would say,” Millie added portentously, “was The clouds made us do it.”
“But that doesn’t explain properly,” Bell said, exasperated.
“They couldn’t explain properly.”
“What clouds made them do it?”
“The clouds that hovered among the hedges.” Millie seemed to think she’d already explained, but Bell knew she hadn’t. It was just so like Millie to embark on a story and leave out important information.
“Where did the clouds come from? Heaven?” Bell really couldn’t help the quip.
“They were a natural pheromone…”
A what?
Millie paused, as if she didn’t quite know what she’d said.
“Phenomenon,” Bell supplied, sighing.
“That. It happened because the maze had channels of water running alongside the paths and the hedges were very thick. The vapour made clouds. Even rainbows, sometimes.”
Well, that sort of made sense. Bell wondered how the physics would work. Fog certainly seemed to rise from damp ground, and Millie was almost certainly talking about fog rather than clouds. Though, come to think of it, they were much the same thing.
“That doesn’t explain how you think a fake castle on an island in Cloud Bay has anything to do with a legendary maze somewhere in the UK,” she said patiently.
“That’s just daft.”
Bell waited for Millie to go on, but she just said, “Forget it,” and disengaged herself. She seemed to be picking at the odd paisley pattern on her shirt and zoning out, maybe watching the passing scenery which featured the occasional gum tree and even more occasional sheep.
Bell drove on in silence for a few kilometres. The silence felt oppressive. Dammit, she’d done it again. Nat-Van.
Millie really couldn’t help it.
“Sorry?” she offered eventually.
Millie was still staring out the window or possibly dozing.
“Sorry with chocolate sprinkles and macadamias?”
Millie sat up. “Where?”
“When we get to an ice cream shop,” Bell said, and she meant it. If they were going to run in childhood patterns, they might as well enjoy some childhood delights. “So— tell me about this connection between these two castles.”
This time, Millie answered more fluently, so maybe she hadn’t been sulking at all, but simply practising her explanation in her mind. “It’s one castle. That’s the point. The Cloud family lived in their castle until sometime in the 1880s when there was an earth tremor that damaged the foundations. They wanted to fix it but were advised that the best thing was to pull it down and rebuild it elsewhere.”
“But that would take—”
“It’s a small castle,” Millie said loudly. “No one wanted even a small castle in their village, so they emigrated to Australia, castle and all. Every stone block had a number painted on it. I suppose you could call it a kit-castle.”
Well, that made sense, but surely, she should have heard of such a bizarre undertaking? Well, maybe she had. Probably, she had read about it before and just forgotten.
“Maybe I have read something about it,” she said carefully. “It was probably in that article about weird buildings… Paronella Park, and the Settler’s Hut and the Herbig Tree and so on.” She had certainly read about those places, and no doubt the kit-castle would have been listed as well.
Millie made a huffing sound which might have been disbelief, or, more likely, relief.
“All right. I accept it’s a real ancient castle,” Bell said. “But what about the Cloud Maze?”
“They emigrated the Cloud Maze too,” Millie said. “That is, they took cuttings from the original plants along with a plan of the maze. They stuck them in a wardrobe on the ship.”
A wardrobe… Dear God, make it stop, Ms Malaprop!
“You mean a Wardian Case,” Bell said.
“Maybe. When they got to Australia, they dibbed on the island and rebuilt Cirrus Castle and replanted the Cloud Maze and there it is to this day.”
“And this day we’re going to visit it!” Bell said with determined cheer. Obviously, that was what Millie wanted to do and was probably why she’d told that weird story in the first place. Though, why she hadn’t just come out and said she wanted to go to Cloud Bay to look at a castle was a puzzle for another day.
Princess Pearl’s Palace might have been a disappointment to seven-year-old Bell, but she’d never been allowed to find out. It wasn’t even there anymore for her to test that theory. The site now housed a multi-fast-food complex, which her parents considered a natural progression.
Millie, however, was not going to be deprived of a chance to see Cloud Castle. Not on Bell’s watch.
“The Cloud family will have brochures or literature about it so we can get the properly documented facts,” she reassured so Millie wouldn’t feel the need to tangle herself up even more.
Her effort didn’t work. Millie started in with more jangled information.
“The family died out. The last one, Mildred Cloud, was engaged to a man called John Beauregard. They met in the maze and came out engaged, then he went into the army. He died at Gallipoli. Mildred went into the maze lots more times, but she never came out as half a couple again. It only works once.”
Bell blinked. Where had all that come from? But wait— the Cloud woman was named Mildred. Maybe her name’s superficial similarity to Millie’s own had made her remember it.
“Let’s hope whoever lives there now has some properly accurate info,” she said, smiling. Then she had an idea. “Or—Millstone, do a seek-me on my phone, will you?”
In case Millie wasn’t up to speed on accurate keyword searches, she added helpfully, “Put Mildred Cloud, Cirrus Castle and the Legend of the Cloud Maze in the search field.”
She expected a bit of fumbling. What she didn’t expect was outright rebellion.
“Oh no,” Millie snapped. “Not after what you said about your pixels being out to get me.”
Bell laughed. “Oh, Millstone! Can’t you tell when someone’s having you on?”
“You can do it later,” Millie said. “And can you tell?”
“I’m not credulous,” Bell said calmly.
Millie curled against the seat, but this time she wasn’t disengaging or sulking. She was probably, quite practically, planning to sleep until it was her turn to take over the driving. “Wake me when we get there,” she mumbled.
Bell drove on. “Actually, it’s pretty easy to tell if people are pulling the longbow.”
Millie didn’t answer.
“Just apply the pub test.”
Silence.
“I mean, it’s perfectly possible to relocate a castle—when the Snowy River scheme was going to drown a whole town, they relocated it all to higher ground.”
Silence.
The phone’s GPS suggested courteously that she should take the next right-hand turn into B16T and proceed for forty-eight kilometres until reaching the sign for Cloud Bay Road C96P.
That close?
Bell slowed and made the turn.
B16T started out as a normal two-laner, but soon narrowed until it should probably have been redesignated as a C.
That seemed odd, because surely Cirrus Castle and the Cloud Maze would attract curious tourists. Even if it wasn’t open to the public, it would be a popular photo stop.
Millie had implied it was open to visitors. How else would multiple strangers have gone traipsing through the Buxus hedges in search of the perfect match?
Wait. That was woolly thinking. Millie had been describing a legend dating from before the 19th century. Even Mildred Cloud, the last of the family, would have been born well before 1900.
Maybe the current owners discouraged visitors.
Wait. Hadn’t Millie said the castle was rebuilt on an island in the bay?
It would have to be a reasonably large island to accommodate a castle—even a small one--and an extensive maze. And how had they got the kit castle to an island? And why?
Causeway. Obviously. Anyway, the Lindisfarne Monastery in England was on a sort of island. That had been rebuilt too, after Viking raids.
Bell drove on, slowed, and turned off into the definitely C-class Cloud Bay Road.
She had to pull right over to allow an ancient mariner in an ancient car pulling an ancient dinghy on a suspiciously new-looking trailer to pass.
He smiled at her from under his bucket hat and raised three fingers from his casual grip on the wheel.
Bell smiled back, relieved, and raised her fingers in response. Probably one of the owners, who had spent the weekend on his island. He was obviously not feeling territorial.
She was aware that wealthy people sometimes presented with a plebian façade, particularly the self-made men. Once the account generated enough zeros, image and aiches ceased to matter.
The Kombi trundled along between crowding scrubby coastal vegetation, then bounced over a few roots and ruts and emerged onto a rough turning circle decorated with crushed shells, cocked-up broken driftwood and wheel tracks, presumably left by the ancient mariner.
Bell brought the Kombi to a rather sudden halt, not wanting to overshoot and get bogged down in sand or shingle.
Having pulled on the handbrake, she cracked open the window and looked around, drawing the salty smell of wet sand and seaweed into her lungs.
Apart from the turning circle she saw no other sign of habitation. The road was undoubtably Cloud Bay Road, and it ended here, so it followed that this must be Cloud Bay.
It was a pleasant semi-circular cove with embracing cliffs, and a cuticle of sand and shingle riffed with seaweed and cuttlefish at the tideline.
There was no causeway and, as far as she could see, no island.
Maybe a few of those whitecaps out there concealed islets or rock clusters, but even at low tide they couldn’t possibly be big enough to support a kit castle, let alone a large maze.
Bell felt a throb of disappointment. She’d expected to be underwhelmed by the discovery of an obvious fake or maybe padlocked gates or a maze composed of more space and dead twigs than neatly trimmed Buxus. She hadn’t expected there to be nothing but sea.
The bay wasn’t big enough to encompass an island. Therefore, this must be the wrong Cloud Bay. There were two Australian Perths, after all, but mistaking one for the other would be difficult since one had two and a half million people and the other fewer than four thousand. There were also three Australian towns named Richmond, in Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania.
Poor old Millstone had spotted the name on the map and jumped to a conclusion.
Bell reached over and put her hand on Millie’s shoulder. Her cousin had asked to be woken when they arrived. And they had, in the manner of speaking, arrived.
“Hmm?” Millie sounded foggy.
“Millstone, wake up. We’re here.”
Millie stretched like a kitten and squirmed herself upright. “Wha-?”
“We’re at Cloud Bay,” Bell said gently.
“Oh!”
Bell caught sight of an anticipatory smile lighting Millie’s wide eyes before she turned to look out across the bay.
She waited for a sound of puzzlement or disappointment as Millie inevitably discovered her mistake.
Nothing.
Then Millie said, “So this is Cloud Bay.”
Bell said, still gently, “This is Cloud Bay. That is, this is a Cloud Bay, Mills. It’s obviously the wrong one.”
Millie turned to face her, with an odd expression. “You think so?”
“It’s got to be,” Bell reasoned. She waved an explanatory hand. “You don’t see an island out there, do you?”
“No,” Millie said softly. “I’d have been surprised—" She broke off and looked away.
Bell hoped she wasn’t going to mope.
“Never mind,” she said. “It’s just a postponement.”
Millie’s wide, pale gaze snapped back. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” Bell tried to sound playful rather than impatient. “I mean, we’ll check online to find the right Cloud Bay. Then—”
“Then?” Millie’s voice had that odd tone again.
“Then we’ll go there,” Bell said. “We’ve got the van, and at least a couple of months up our sleeves. We can drive just about anywhere in the country in that time. You will get to see Cirrus Castle, and we might even go for a walk in the Cloud Maze. I wonder if this one has channels of water flowing through it to make its own cloudy ecosystem the way the old one had.”
Millie was fairly goggling at her now.
Her face twitched.
It rippled.
She turned away abruptly.
“We’ll find it,” Bell said.
Silence.
Then Millie said in a stifled voice, “You’d really do that—drive all over the country—just so I can see a castle?”
“Well—yes. I’d like to see it too. Besides, we won’t just drive at random.”
“What’ll we do then?”
“I’ll do a seek-me.” Bell picked up her phone and woke it. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to do it. A pixel might get you.”
“And turn me into an ant, I suppose.”
Bell laughed. “Here goes.” She recited the keywords as she typed, proving she’d meant what she said. “Mildred… Cloud… Cirrus… Castle… Legend… of.. the… Cloud… Maze…” She was just closing the last set of phrasing quotes when Millie said, “Don’t.”
Bell froze. “Look, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings with the pixel joke. It was only a joke. Not a putdown.”
“You have no reason to put me down, so why would I think it was one?” Millie said.
“I just have a bad habit of pushing ideas to see where they go.”
“Oh, is that what it is.” Millie sounded a bit weary, a bit sarcastic, and a bit nervous. “But honestly, Bell. Don’t search for those terms.”
Bell tapped enter.
“Why not?” she asked, to mask the fact that she already had. Even if Millie didn’t want to know, she did.
“Because I was joking too,” Millie said flatly.
“What?”
Before Bell could clarify Millie’s comment, her phone found the search terms and started to read them aloud.
“’Legend of the Cloud Maze’ refers to the title of a book published in 2026 by Toffee Press after being shortlisted for the Blue Moon Award for the best unpublished manuscript. The debut novel of author Millie Stone, Legend of the Cloud Maze tells a story of intrigue and memory, of legends and the way hearsay shapes belief. Told through the eyes of Mildred Cloud, the horrors of the Great War play out as a persuasive background to her personal tragedy. Her fiancé, met in almost magical circumstances, has died in a hail of Turkish bullets, leaving Mildred adrift on a sea of might-have-beens. But Mildred believes in miracles. Her ancestors’ extraordinary feat in recreating the fabulous Cloud Maze haunts her. The Cloud family may have dwindled, but their last daughter will never give up her dreams. Time after time she walks the maze, but the line between faith and fate is a fine one.”
The phone paused, then asked brightly, “Would you like me to find a buy-me link? Or would you prefer me to talk about the Blue Moon—”
Millie turned, snatched the phone, and thumbed the volume button down.
Bell stared at her incredulously. Her cousin’s sallow cheeks bore blotches of dull red, and her pale eyes sparkled with a mix of malice and defiance.
“I told you not to.”
Bell blinked.
For quite two seconds she hovered on the brink of hurt and fury. For another two, her palms itched to perform a slow hand-clap while she delivered a jeering putdown.
Her lips trembled. It felt strange.
Nat/Van Nat/Van Nat/Van
So—she wasn’t the only one.
She put the phone down in the holder and grasped one of Millie’s clenched hands.
“Have you brought a copy with you?”
Millie’s angry expression trembled and became rueful.
“Yes,” she admitted in a small voice. “I’m still at the stage of wanting to carry it around.”
“Am I allowed to see it? I’ll buy a copy, obviously, but for now?”
“I’ll dig it out.”
Millie slid out to land on the beach with a crunch before opening the side door of the Kombi and extracting a book from her duffel.
She handed it to Bell.
Bell almost held her breath. There were so many scams out there—but it was all right. Toffee Press was a boutique publisher that punched above its weight. The fat paperback featured a maze with figures traversing the paths. Millie’s name adorned the lowest hedge.
Bell opened it and read the opening paragraphs.
Sensing Millie back in her seat and twitching with nerves, she closed the book and said, “You have an oblique style, rich in imagery.”
“That’s what one of my reviews said.”
“I haven’t read the reviews. So why that inept performance you treated me to?”
Millie looked angry for a moment then laughed unexpectedly. “I am verbally inept. I haven’t found a satisfactory explanation for that, but Mum says it’s probably because the part of my brain used for writing is better developed than my speech centre. I’m going to have to get better at explaining the story, in case I ever get interviewed.”
“You can practise on me if you like,” Bell said.
“I might.” Millie held out her hand for the book and Bell handed it over.
While Millie put it away, Bell reclaimed her phone and began a new search for the nearest speciality ice cream shop.
A promise was a promise, and she looked forward to getting to know this unexpected person who bore her cousin’s name.
So, that's the end of the dual story. Below are some deconstuction comments.
SO? Bell’s View complements Millie’s View, proving Millie partly right in her suppositions about Bell.
On the other hand, what she sees as effortless and unknowing superiority isn’t quite what it seems. From the information Bell has to hand, her opinion of Millie is somewhat justified. She just lacks some of the facts because Millie has never told her—possibly for fear of a putdown or being patronised, and partly because most of their association was in childhood when Bell’s extra year would have mattered.
Is it feasible that Bell’s family wouldn’t know about the award and subsequent publication of Millie’s novel?
I think so. Book awards generally get far less mainstream attention than sports, music, acting or painting.
Bell reads, but she might not be a lover of light/romantic/women’s fiction. In fact, it’s likely she was discouraged from light reading by her parents. She probably would know about the scammy prizes, awards and deals unwary authors get offered. Her parents are coolly disapproving of fakes/facsimiles, clickbait and tourist traps, so pitying or despising authors who’ve been scammed would be mill-grist to them.
Millie is probably both right and wrong to fear public interviews. She wouldn’t make the best showing, but on the other hand, the chances of her being interviewed verbally are low.
Was Bell credulous to believe Millie’s story?
Not really. Not very. She had no reason to expect Millie of sharp practice. Also, the strangeness of the maze leading to abrupt romances aside, (and there are plenty of similar superstitions out there, and after a while it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy) the skeleton of Millie’s plot-situation is plausible—just.
Millie’s wide-set eyes, in truth an inconsequential physical trait from her mother, would also work subliminally on Bell. That feature is popularly associated with innocence, candour and gentleness.
Millie’s claim that she is verbally inept and her theory that the part of my brain used for writing is better developed than my speech centre might also contribute to Bell’s (and her parents’) opinion that Millie is just a bit slow. I don’t know much about brain development, but I assume different attributes can develop at different speeds. Some children learn to talk much earlier than others, and various milestones and skills, physical, emotional and mental, also have wide schedules that may not be related to intelligence.
If we allow things such as coordination, the ability to walk backwards, and even to take experience in one field and use it in another as stages of brain development, then some people never attain dexterity in some areas while functioning perfectly well otherwise in their peer society.
Small Stuff
Millie is a diminutive for names such as Amelia, Millicent, and, yes, Mildred. It is sometimes given independently as Millie or Milly. There are about 700 people using the Millie spelling in Australia.
It lends itself to Silly Millie nicknames, and also riffs of humility.
Millie’s surname is Stone, which is fairly common surname (469 of them in Australia). It suggests solid values and perpetuating states.
Her mother is Bec, short for Rebecca.
Bell’s name might be short for Annabel, Arabella, Belle, Bella, Isabel or even Mabel, but it could also be a transplanted surname or just an unusual choice. There are about 400 of them in Australia. The French spelling, Belle, is more common. Bell generally suggests bells, or belle, the word for beautiful.
Her surname is Keyes: which is just about as common as Stone. Her mother, Bec’s sister, is not named.
Cloud: the name Millie used for her fictional family, is an uncommon surname (24 in Australia). Mildred, the name given to the last daughter of the Clouds, is almost entirely out of use: (43 in Australia, all, I think, over the age of 73.)
Bell’s comments:
When Bell mentions relocated and rebuilt towns, she’s referring to Adaminaby, Jindabyne, or Talbingo, all moved out of the way of high water levels when the Snowy River Scheme was built.
Flatworms and fungus do indeed “drive” ants around for their own purposes.
The Herbig Family Tree (South Australia), a hollow red gum with a base diameter of 7 m, was inhabited by Aboriginals and, in the 1850s, by Friedrich Herbig, his wife and their two children.
Paronella Park (a Spanish castle in Queensland) was built by Jose Paronella as a gift for his wife, Margarita, in the 1930s.
Bell’s tale of the sword swallower who swallowed neon tubing to prove a point is also true.
The Wardian Case supposedly used to transport cuttings from the original Cloud Maze was invented in 1829 by Dr Nathaniel Ward.
Fiction:
The Settler’s Hut, Cloud Bay, Cloud Bay Road and the route numbers C96P and B16T are invented, as is Princess Pearl’s Palace.
The Crocodilia Museum is not a specific place, and Techspace is made up, though there might be an educational facility with that name.
Toffee Press and the Blue Moon Literary Award are invented.
Nat/Van is an invented reference although I think it probably exists under another name.
Seek-me is the name of my own private search engine. It doesn’t exist.
Gel-LED screens for phones don’t exist as far as I know. Bell’s quip about a stray pixel latching onto Millie’s fingernail is not, as far as I know, a real urban legend, though it’s no dafter than some.
The significance of Bell’s choice of a salad sandwich and a plain lemon shirt and Millie’s of a Vegemite sandwich and a paisley shirt reflect their confidence, and lack of it, that they won’t spill things down their clothes.
Two cousins, one modified Kombi, and an old legend… Bell and Millie used to know one another all too well. Now they’re grown up but has anything really changed?
Take 1: Millie’s View
Millie finished her Vegemite sandwich and scrumpled the paper, her gaze riveted to the super-sized screen on her cousin’s phone.
She hardly believed what she saw. Coincidence? Fate saying hello?
Now or not at all.
“I know a legend about this place.” She stabbed her finger against the map on the screen.
The screen dimpled from the pressure of her fingernail, and she hastily withdrew her hand. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Your talons don’t know their own strength,” said Bell. “One day you’ll stab straight through into the screen. A stray pixel will take up residence in your fingernail.”
“I hope not.” Millie examined her nail.
“Then it will burrow into your cuticle and head for your brain and influence your decisions,” Bell said in a sepulchral voice. She paused, making twilight zone wiggles with her fingers and scattering incidental crumbs. “Like those ants that get piloted about by fungus, or maybe flatworms. Goodbye brain cells.” Then she said, in her normal tone, “Teasing you’s too easy, Millstone. So, what’s this legend?”
“It’s about the Cloud Maze of Cirrus Castle,” Millie said.
“Hm?” Bell’s clear brow wrinkled.
“I thought you’d heard of everything.”
“Nearly everything,” Bell said.
“The castle’s on an island in Cloud Bay. The legend goes back for generations.”
Bell wrinkled her erudite roman nose and bit another neat semi-circle out of her salad sandwich. “Hello! You do know any castle in Australia is a fake, right, Millstone?”
“This one’s real.”
“Real castles are hundreds of years old. If they’re not, they’re fakes or Victorian follies.”
“It’s real.” Millie leaned back. It was Bell’s turn to drive the modified Kombi, so she was lady-of-leisuring, with her seat tilted and her feet free of shoes. She dabbed at a Vegemite spot on her retro-paisley patterned sleeve. How had that got there? She’d been so careful.
“Spill.” Bell ate the last bite of mayo-soaked crust, balled up her sandwich wrapper and tossed it into the bin two metres beyond the van window. “Bullseye! Beat that.”
“You know I can’t.” Millie stuffed her detritus into the cooler bag for later disposal.
Bell, cool and spotless in a sleeveless lemon top and white shorts, peered at the phone. “Cloud Bay?”
“Yes.”
Bell tapped the screen. “May as well swing by to see this famous real castle of yours.”
She clonked the phone into the hands-free holder, facing Millie, and started the engine.
Millie peered at her fingernail again for a few seconds. Was that Vegemite? She sucked it experimentally.
“Now you’ve swallowed the stray pixel,” Bell intoned. “While we wait for your tummy to light up like a sword swallower—”
“What?” Millie mumbled around her fingertip.
Bell smiled sideways. “I read about a sword swallower who got tired of being accused of using trick swords. He swallowed a neon tube. Lit up like the Bridge on New Year’s Eve. But go on. Amaze me with this legend.”
Millie folded her hands to keep them out of mischief. Bell knew about neon tubes, flatworms and pixels. She didn’t know about the Legend of the Cloud Maze. Millie could almost guarantee that.
Now was the time to enlighten her.
“Okay. Cirrus Castle had belonged to the Cloud family forever. They went on living there long after castles went out of fashion. They looked after the Cloud Maze planted in the gardens. It was boxwood, which lived for centuries.”
“Buxus,” said Bell.
She would.
“Strangers sometimes entered the maze and not all of them came out as they went in.”
“And?” Bell prompted.
“Well, after it happened a few times, the legend started that—”
“Someone had been murderated?”
“No.”
“Someone had locked up their mad granny in the gazebo?”
“No.”
“Someone—”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously—”
“I am. But with you stopping all the time, my brain gets bored and fills in the gaps.”
“That’s not stopping. That’s significant pausing.”
“Oh, go on, do.”
“The legend started that people were meeting up in the maze and…”
“Dy—”
“Bell! Let me tell it!” Verbalising the tale was unexpectedly difficult.
Bell zipped her lips.
“People were meeting up in the maze and not coming out until morning. Then they
came out as…ah-ah! No, you don’t!”
“I didn’t say a thing,” Bell protested.
“You inspirated. Or expirated.”
“I have to breathe.”
Because this was undeniable, Millie let it stand.
“They came out as couples,” she said.
Bell frowned. “So? I expect they went in there for a bit of privacy.”
“No! They went in there as totally single strangers and came out joined at the hip and
lips to lips. That was how it was told. And all they would say was The clouds made us do it.”
“But that doesn’t explain properly.”
“They couldn’t explain properly.”
“What clouds made them do it?”
“The clouds that hovered among the hedges.” Hadn’t she mentioned those? Maybe not.
“Where did the clouds come from? Heaven?”
“They were a natural pheromone…” Millie frowned because that didn’t sound right.
“Phenomenon,” Bell supplied.
“That. It happened because the maze had channels of water running alongside the paths and the hedges were very thick. The vapour made clouds. Even rainbows, sometimes.”
“That doesn’t explain how you think a fake castle on an island in Cloud Bay has anything to do with a legendary maze somewhere in the UK. That’s just daft.”
Millie frowned. Surely the answer was obvious to someone of Bell’s superior intellect—the intellect that would see its owner plunge into a Bachelor of Something-or-other studies at the end of their gap-six-months? Millie herself would be interning at Fancies on the Beach.
She watched the sheep-dotted scenery slide by. “Forget it.”
Bell drove in silence for a few kilometres. “Sorry?” she offered.
Millie breathed deeply.
“Sorry with chocolate sprinkles and macadamias?”
Millie sat up. “Where?”
“When we get to an ice cream shop. So— tell me about this connection between these two castles.”
“It’s one castle. That’s the point. The Cloud family lived in the castle until sometime in the 1880s when there was an earth tremor that damaged the foundations. They wanted to fix it but were advised that the best thing was to pull it down and rebuild it elsewhere.”
“But that would take—”
“It’s a small castle,” Millie said, raising her voice. “No one wanted even a small castle in their village, so they emigrated to Australia, castle and all. Every stone block had a number painted on it. I suppose you could call it a kit-castle.”
Bell was quiet, probably digesting this. Then she said, “Maybe I have read something about it… It was probably in that article about weird buildings… Paronella Park, and the Settler’s Hut and the Herbig Tree and so on.”
Millie huffed. Typical. Bell has to know everything.
“All right. I accept it’s a real ancient castle,” Bell said. “But what about the Cloud Maze?”
“They emigrated the Cloud Maze too,” Millie said. “That is, they took cuttings from the original plants along with a plan of the maze. They stuck them in a wardrobe on the ship.”
“You mean a Wardian Case,” Bell corrected.
“Maybe. When they got to Australia, they dibbed on the island and rebuilt Cirrus Castle and replanted the Cloud Maze and there it is to this day.”
“And this day we’re going to visit it!” Bell said. “The Clouds will have brochures or literature about it so we can get the properly documented facts.”
Documented facts? Didn’t I just tell her the documented facts?
“The family died out. The last one, Mildred Cloud, was engaged to a man called John Beauregard. They met in the maze and came out engaged, then he went into the army. He died at Gallipoli. Mildred went into the maze lots more times, but she never came out as half a couple again. It only works once.”
“Let’s hope whoever lives there now has some properly accurate info,” Bell said. “Or—Millstone, do a seek-me on my phone, will you? Put Mildred Cloud, Cirrus Castle and the Legend of the Cloud Maze in the search field.”
“Oh no. Not after what you said about your pixels being out to get me.”
Bell laughed. “Oh, Millstone! Can’t you tell when someone’s having you on?”
“You can do it later,” Millie said. “And can you tell?”
“I’m not credulous,” Bell said. She didn’t even sound smug.
Millie curled against the seat. “Wake me when we get there.”
Bell drove on, occasionally speculating on facts versus hearsay.
Millie smiled to herself, half watching as the kilometres clicked down on their detour to Cloud Bay.
She wondered if there was a way to the island, and if there was a structure there. She wondered if there was even an island.
Of course there was. She had put it there. Virtually speaking.
Bell would look up the keywords on her phone and find it right enough. Legend of the Cloud Maze, by Millie Stone. It had an ISBN and everything!
End of original story. Now for my comments before we go to part 2.
SO?This was going to be a perfectly ordinary fantasy story to enter in the Clouds contest. I realised it was getting too long, so I changed tracks and tweaked the beginning to bring it under the required 1500 words. It is now not a fantasy, but a tale of two cousins, one of whom effortlessly outshines the other. Bell doesn’t like the slow and disjointed way Millie tells the story of the legend and she’s not keen on Millie knowing something she doesn’t. And that’s it. If the story was retold from Bell’s POV… well! Bell shall go to the ball! Read on and discover Bell’s View
Take 2: Bell’s ViewBell Keyes was enjoying her salad sandwich, savouring texture and flavour—umm, mustard seeds— while she idly flicked through the maps on her phone, auditioning different routes to encompass maximum examples of scenery and places of interest vs the minimum expenditure of petrol and angst.
There was no use asking her cousin Millie’s opinion. Dear old Millstone was a ditherer and just a wee bit slo--
Bell stopped the thought before it could materialise. It didn’t do to be cruel. As her parents had told her on more than one occasion, with the terrible patience of two geniuses lowering themselves to address a child’s emotional intelligence, she had been born with Nat/Van. This, she learned, was private short-speak for natural advantages. It meant she was genetically, culturally and situationally gifted.
This, as her parents were wont to point out, was nothing to be smug about. It was a scientific fact, not something for which she could take any credit.
Being Nat/Van brought unearned perks. Unearned by Bell, anyway. Maybe some of her ancestors had made deliberate choices that culminated in her. Being Nat/Van also had its drawbacks.
Her parents had advised her that she was going to find it difficult to fit into the average peer group and must be vigilant about causing offence and courting enmity by being seen to feel superior.
This had proved itself true.
“Does that mean I ought to get things wrong on purpose?” she’d asked, stinging from a chorus of You think you’re so smart from the eight-year-old proto tween queens of Hillmont Primary.
On no account. She must perform to her true potential while recognising that others might also be performing to theirs which might not be quite...
Whatever they were not quite had never been revealed. Her clear-spoken, clear-eyed, Nat/Van parents had stumbled in a morass of contradiction.
Be truthful. Be diplomatic. State facts. Colour them kindly.
Bell forgave them.
One had to make allowances.
They’d never seen fit to provide her with a sibling for companionship, but maybe it wouldn’t have worked anyway. It hadn’t for her mother and Aunt Bec.
A crumpling sound jerked her out of her musing, and she glanced across at Millie, who had finished her Vegemite sandwich and screwed up the paper bag.
Her pale blue eyes, curiously wide-apart like Aunt Bec’s, seemed to stare fixedly at the phone screen. In fact, they seemed about ready to jump out of their sockets.
Bell smiled enquiringly. It seemed Millie had something she wanted to say. Maybe she did have an opinion about the best route?
Speed didn’t much matter—they were taking a gap six months because Bell’s accelerated university course wasn’t offered until May and Millie’s internship in some harbour-side business or other had been postponed on humanitarian grounds when the former intern’s forthcoming promised job was withdrawn. Former Intern needed to be reinstated as Current Intern until another job was sourced… and that meant postponing Intern Elect. Or something like that. It had to do with government grants.
Wandering around the country for a while in Millie’s mum’s old Kombi while they waited for their futures to get taken off hold had seemed a no-brainer.
They’d always got along okay as kids. Bell’s year of seniority had been enough to keep the balance working in her favour while maintaining the fiction that she got better marks and hit more milestones because she was older.
“Look after Millie,” their mums had always chorused, and she had.
They hadn’t seen much of one another since entering separate high schools a year apart, and less still since finishing their compulsory education.
Bell raised her eyebrows, waiting for Millie’s input on the matter of preferred routes, but when it came it was oddly unexpected.
“I know a legend about this place,” Millie blurted. She stabbed her finger against the map on the screen.
She’d been growing her nails and experimenting with decals for some reason, and her forefinger’s nail briefly dinted the gel-LED screen.
Millie snatched her hand away as if the contact had burned her. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Your talons don’t know their own strength,” said Bell.
Because Millie was looking wide-eyed and a bit blankly feral, she continued, “One day you’ll stab straight through into the screen. A stray pixel will take up residence in your fingernail.”
“I hope not.” Millie actually examined her nail, drawing her barely-there brows together.
“It will burrow into your cuticle and head for your brain and influence your decisions,” Bell continued, inspired. She paused, waggling her fingers as the Twilight Zone theme played in her head.
“Like those ants that get piloted about by fungus, or maybe flatworms,” she continued. “Goodbye brain cells.”
Millie stared at her, positively bug-eyed.
Bell relented. “Teasing you’s too easy, Millstone. So, what’s this legend you know?”
“It’s about the Cloud Maze of Cirrus Castle,” Millie said in an oddly strong voice. It was almost as if she’d been rehearsing, but that was nonsense. She couldn’t have known the map would show whatever random landmark she’d fixed on.
It was the merest chance that they were right here, right now. Faced with a branch in the road as they left Camber, Bell had tossed a coin that morning.
Then her cousin’s words soaked into Bell’s mind. She bit her tongue to prevent herself from repeating… the Cloud Maze of Cirrus Castle. It sounded as if it ought to be familiar, but a quick sift through her mind-repository came up empty.
“Hm?”
“I thought you’d heard of everything.” Millie sounded triumphantly reproachful—if that was a thing.
“Only nearly everything,” Bell said drily.
Millie returned doggedly to her recitation—if that’s what it was. “The castle’s on an island in Cloud Bay. The legend goes back for generations.”
Cloud Bay was certainly a feature of the map that had been up before the screen died from lack of attention. Bell wrinkled her nose and ate another bite of her salad sandwich which was beginning to feel a bit damp and so was better in than out. She was trying… she was truly trying… not to be unkind.
Nat/Van. Nat/Van. Nat/Van. Gulp.
Yet it burst out anyway. Maybe a couple of weeks and counting of undiluted Millstone was more than anyone could face with equanimity. “Hello! You do know any castle in Australia is a fake, right, Millstone?”
“This one’s real,” said Millie.
“Real castles are hundreds of years old,” educated Bell. “If they’re not, they’re fakes or Victorian follies.”
Surely Millie knew that? Bell thought she’d known it forever… or at least since she’d excitedly pointed out a turreted structure during a road trip with her father and mother when she was seven. Is that a castle?
No, they’d informed her. Princess Pearl’s Palace just looked like a castle. It was a tourist trap, and they would not be encouraging that sort of thing. They’d call at the Crocodilia Museum or the Techspace instead.
Her lecture, almost kindly meant, had no effect. Her cousin merely repeated her assertation that the castle at Cloud Bay was real. Then she leaned back in the seat and seemed transfixed by the rather ugly brownish-pinkish paisley pattern of her shirt.
“Spill,” Bell said, to get her attention. She popped the last piece of sandwich into her mouth and scored a bullseye with her paper bag in the bin outside the van.
“Bullseye! Beat that,” she said, reverting briefly to childhood.
“You know I can’t.” Millie tidied away her crumpled bag.
Bell woke up the phone. “Cloud Bay?” she questioned, to make sure she had it right.
“Yes.”
Bell grinned, tapping the screen to orient the map. “May as well swing by to see this famous real castle of yours.” It might be entertaining and she was positively not going to mock her cousin when they reached an artful purpose-build ruin, or someone’s whimsical notion of a house. It was unfair to mock and besides, she remembered how disappointed she’d been when the awesome turrets of dreams she’d spotted at seven had been ever-so-kindly debunked in favour of Techspace which had turned out to be chatty and educational without a single awe about it.
She set the phone down in its holder—it would be too humiliating to be pulled over by the phone-police—and started the van. She had to hand it to Aunt Bec. Her vehicle was old, but she’d kept it serviced and reliable and even made modifications for comfort and practicality. It was lightweight and fair on petrol, and the saving on accommodation and ability to make or refrigerate meals during their road trip outweighed its mumsy vibe. The painting of a duck with her ducklings traipsing across the rear door was regrettable, but Aunt Bec had always had a weird artistic streak of eccentricity.
Out of the corner of her eye, Bell saw Millie sucking her finger.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
“Now you’ve swallowed the stray pixel,” she said. “While we wait for your tummy to light up like a sword swallower—”
“What?” Millie sounded fuzzy.
Bell pulled out of the layby, straightened onto the highway and glanced at her cousin. “I read about a sword swallower who got tired of being accused of using trick swords. He swallowed a neon tube. Lit up like the Bridge on New Year’s Eve. But go on. Amaze me with this legend.”
Millie folded her hands.
Recitation, insisted Bell’s mind.
But why? She heard Millie inhale and saw her posture shift just a bit.
Definitely, recitation.
“Okay,” Millie said in a no-nonsense diction, followed by another big breath. “Cirrus Castle had belonged to the Cloud family forever. They went on living there long after castles went out of fashion. They looked after the Cloud Maze in the gardens. It was boxwood, which lived for centuries.”
“Buxus,” put in Bell, before she could stop herself.
Millie hardly acknowledged the correction. “Strangers sometimes entered the maze and not all of them came out as they went in.”
“And?” Bell prompted, wondering at the peculiar emphasis.
“Well, after it happened a few times, the legend started that—”
“Someone had been murderated?”
“No.”
“Someone had locked up their mad granny in the gazebo?”
“No.”
“Someone—”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously—”
“I am,” Bell assured her cousin. “But with you stopping all the time, my brain gets bored and fills in the gaps.”
Millie managed to look affronted. “That’s not stopping. That’s significant pausing.”
“Oh, go on, do,” Bell said. She wanted to make winding up motions with her fingers, but she had to keep her hands on the wheel and harrying people with slower—er, differently paced—minds was unkind.
After a few seconds which dragged interminably for Bell, Millie went on. “The legend started that people were meeting up in the maze and…” She paused yet again to collect herself.
“Dying.” Bell couldn’t help it. She wanted to expand into zombism, batification or amazement, but her cousin snapped back.
“Bell! Let me tell it!”
Bell zipped her lips ostentatiously, and bit gently but firmly on the insides of them to keep herself silent.
“People were meeting up in the maze and not coming out until morning,” Millie went on with a rush. “Then they came out as…ah-ah! No, you don’t!”
“I didn’t say a thing,” Bell protested, releasing her lips in her own defence.
“You inspirated. Or expirated.”
“I have to breathe.”
Millie grumbled almost audibly. “They came out as couples,” she said.
Again, the odd emphasis seemed stronger than the words warranted. Bell frowned. The pause went on and this time, Millie seemed to be waiting for a response.
Bell made one. “So? I expect they went in there for a bit of privacy.” She had never hooked up with a guy in a maze—had, in fact, never been in one— but she supposed it was a good place if one wanted to avoid intrusive friends or relatives.
“No!” Millie said with vigour. “They went in there as totally single strangers and came out joined at the hip and lips to lips. That was how it was told.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bell saw her cousin give three sharp nods as if she was agreeing with herself.
“And all they would say,” Millie added portentously, “was The clouds made us do it.”
“But that doesn’t explain properly,” Bell said, exasperated.
“They couldn’t explain properly.”
“What clouds made them do it?”
“The clouds that hovered among the hedges.” Millie seemed to think she’d already explained, but Bell knew she hadn’t. It was just so like Millie to embark on a story and leave out important information.
“Where did the clouds come from? Heaven?” Bell really couldn’t help the quip.
“They were a natural pheromone…”
A what?
Millie paused, as if she didn’t quite know what she’d said.
“Phenomenon,” Bell supplied, sighing.
“That. It happened because the maze had channels of water running alongside the paths and the hedges were very thick. The vapour made clouds. Even rainbows, sometimes.”
Well, that sort of made sense. Bell wondered how the physics would work. Fog certainly seemed to rise from damp ground, and Millie was almost certainly talking about fog rather than clouds. Though, come to think of it, they were much the same thing.
“That doesn’t explain how you think a fake castle on an island in Cloud Bay has anything to do with a legendary maze somewhere in the UK,” she said patiently.
“That’s just daft.”
Bell waited for Millie to go on, but she just said, “Forget it,” and disengaged herself. She seemed to be picking at the odd paisley pattern on her shirt and zoning out, maybe watching the passing scenery which featured the occasional gum tree and even more occasional sheep.
Bell drove on in silence for a few kilometres. The silence felt oppressive. Dammit, she’d done it again. Nat-Van.
Millie really couldn’t help it.
“Sorry?” she offered eventually.
Millie was still staring out the window or possibly dozing.
“Sorry with chocolate sprinkles and macadamias?”
Millie sat up. “Where?”
“When we get to an ice cream shop,” Bell said, and she meant it. If they were going to run in childhood patterns, they might as well enjoy some childhood delights. “So— tell me about this connection between these two castles.”
This time, Millie answered more fluently, so maybe she hadn’t been sulking at all, but simply practising her explanation in her mind. “It’s one castle. That’s the point. The Cloud family lived in their castle until sometime in the 1880s when there was an earth tremor that damaged the foundations. They wanted to fix it but were advised that the best thing was to pull it down and rebuild it elsewhere.”
“But that would take—”
“It’s a small castle,” Millie said loudly. “No one wanted even a small castle in their village, so they emigrated to Australia, castle and all. Every stone block had a number painted on it. I suppose you could call it a kit-castle.”
Well, that made sense, but surely, she should have heard of such a bizarre undertaking? Well, maybe she had. Probably, she had read about it before and just forgotten.
“Maybe I have read something about it,” she said carefully. “It was probably in that article about weird buildings… Paronella Park, and the Settler’s Hut and the Herbig Tree and so on.” She had certainly read about those places, and no doubt the kit-castle would have been listed as well.
Millie made a huffing sound which might have been disbelief, or, more likely, relief.
“All right. I accept it’s a real ancient castle,” Bell said. “But what about the Cloud Maze?”
“They emigrated the Cloud Maze too,” Millie said. “That is, they took cuttings from the original plants along with a plan of the maze. They stuck them in a wardrobe on the ship.”
A wardrobe… Dear God, make it stop, Ms Malaprop!
“You mean a Wardian Case,” Bell said.
“Maybe. When they got to Australia, they dibbed on the island and rebuilt Cirrus Castle and replanted the Cloud Maze and there it is to this day.”
“And this day we’re going to visit it!” Bell said with determined cheer. Obviously, that was what Millie wanted to do and was probably why she’d told that weird story in the first place. Though, why she hadn’t just come out and said she wanted to go to Cloud Bay to look at a castle was a puzzle for another day.
Princess Pearl’s Palace might have been a disappointment to seven-year-old Bell, but she’d never been allowed to find out. It wasn’t even there anymore for her to test that theory. The site now housed a multi-fast-food complex, which her parents considered a natural progression.
Millie, however, was not going to be deprived of a chance to see Cloud Castle. Not on Bell’s watch.
“The Cloud family will have brochures or literature about it so we can get the properly documented facts,” she reassured so Millie wouldn’t feel the need to tangle herself up even more.
Her effort didn’t work. Millie started in with more jangled information.
“The family died out. The last one, Mildred Cloud, was engaged to a man called John Beauregard. They met in the maze and came out engaged, then he went into the army. He died at Gallipoli. Mildred went into the maze lots more times, but she never came out as half a couple again. It only works once.”
Bell blinked. Where had all that come from? But wait— the Cloud woman was named Mildred. Maybe her name’s superficial similarity to Millie’s own had made her remember it.
“Let’s hope whoever lives there now has some properly accurate info,” she said, smiling. Then she had an idea. “Or—Millstone, do a seek-me on my phone, will you?”
In case Millie wasn’t up to speed on accurate keyword searches, she added helpfully, “Put Mildred Cloud, Cirrus Castle and the Legend of the Cloud Maze in the search field.”
She expected a bit of fumbling. What she didn’t expect was outright rebellion.
“Oh no,” Millie snapped. “Not after what you said about your pixels being out to get me.”
Bell laughed. “Oh, Millstone! Can’t you tell when someone’s having you on?”
“You can do it later,” Millie said. “And can you tell?”
“I’m not credulous,” Bell said calmly.
Millie curled against the seat, but this time she wasn’t disengaging or sulking. She was probably, quite practically, planning to sleep until it was her turn to take over the driving. “Wake me when we get there,” she mumbled.
Bell drove on. “Actually, it’s pretty easy to tell if people are pulling the longbow.”
Millie didn’t answer.
“Just apply the pub test.”
Silence.
“I mean, it’s perfectly possible to relocate a castle—when the Snowy River scheme was going to drown a whole town, they relocated it all to higher ground.”
Silence.
The phone’s GPS suggested courteously that she should take the next right-hand turn into B16T and proceed for forty-eight kilometres until reaching the sign for Cloud Bay Road C96P.
That close?
Bell slowed and made the turn.
B16T started out as a normal two-laner, but soon narrowed until it should probably have been redesignated as a C.
That seemed odd, because surely Cirrus Castle and the Cloud Maze would attract curious tourists. Even if it wasn’t open to the public, it would be a popular photo stop.
Millie had implied it was open to visitors. How else would multiple strangers have gone traipsing through the Buxus hedges in search of the perfect match?
Wait. That was woolly thinking. Millie had been describing a legend dating from before the 19th century. Even Mildred Cloud, the last of the family, would have been born well before 1900.
Maybe the current owners discouraged visitors.
Wait. Hadn’t Millie said the castle was rebuilt on an island in the bay?
It would have to be a reasonably large island to accommodate a castle—even a small one--and an extensive maze. And how had they got the kit castle to an island? And why?
Causeway. Obviously. Anyway, the Lindisfarne Monastery in England was on a sort of island. That had been rebuilt too, after Viking raids.
Bell drove on, slowed, and turned off into the definitely C-class Cloud Bay Road.
She had to pull right over to allow an ancient mariner in an ancient car pulling an ancient dinghy on a suspiciously new-looking trailer to pass.
He smiled at her from under his bucket hat and raised three fingers from his casual grip on the wheel.
Bell smiled back, relieved, and raised her fingers in response. Probably one of the owners, who had spent the weekend on his island. He was obviously not feeling territorial.
She was aware that wealthy people sometimes presented with a plebian façade, particularly the self-made men. Once the account generated enough zeros, image and aiches ceased to matter.
The Kombi trundled along between crowding scrubby coastal vegetation, then bounced over a few roots and ruts and emerged onto a rough turning circle decorated with crushed shells, cocked-up broken driftwood and wheel tracks, presumably left by the ancient mariner.
Bell brought the Kombi to a rather sudden halt, not wanting to overshoot and get bogged down in sand or shingle.
Having pulled on the handbrake, she cracked open the window and looked around, drawing the salty smell of wet sand and seaweed into her lungs.
Apart from the turning circle she saw no other sign of habitation. The road was undoubtably Cloud Bay Road, and it ended here, so it followed that this must be Cloud Bay.
It was a pleasant semi-circular cove with embracing cliffs, and a cuticle of sand and shingle riffed with seaweed and cuttlefish at the tideline.
There was no causeway and, as far as she could see, no island.
Maybe a few of those whitecaps out there concealed islets or rock clusters, but even at low tide they couldn’t possibly be big enough to support a kit castle, let alone a large maze.
Bell felt a throb of disappointment. She’d expected to be underwhelmed by the discovery of an obvious fake or maybe padlocked gates or a maze composed of more space and dead twigs than neatly trimmed Buxus. She hadn’t expected there to be nothing but sea.
The bay wasn’t big enough to encompass an island. Therefore, this must be the wrong Cloud Bay. There were two Australian Perths, after all, but mistaking one for the other would be difficult since one had two and a half million people and the other fewer than four thousand. There were also three Australian towns named Richmond, in Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania.
Poor old Millstone had spotted the name on the map and jumped to a conclusion.
Bell reached over and put her hand on Millie’s shoulder. Her cousin had asked to be woken when they arrived. And they had, in the manner of speaking, arrived.
“Hmm?” Millie sounded foggy.
“Millstone, wake up. We’re here.”
Millie stretched like a kitten and squirmed herself upright. “Wha-?”
“We’re at Cloud Bay,” Bell said gently.
“Oh!”
Bell caught sight of an anticipatory smile lighting Millie’s wide eyes before she turned to look out across the bay.
She waited for a sound of puzzlement or disappointment as Millie inevitably discovered her mistake.
Nothing.
Then Millie said, “So this is Cloud Bay.”
Bell said, still gently, “This is Cloud Bay. That is, this is a Cloud Bay, Mills. It’s obviously the wrong one.”
Millie turned to face her, with an odd expression. “You think so?”
“It’s got to be,” Bell reasoned. She waved an explanatory hand. “You don’t see an island out there, do you?”
“No,” Millie said softly. “I’d have been surprised—" She broke off and looked away.
Bell hoped she wasn’t going to mope.
“Never mind,” she said. “It’s just a postponement.”
Millie’s wide, pale gaze snapped back. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” Bell tried to sound playful rather than impatient. “I mean, we’ll check online to find the right Cloud Bay. Then—”
“Then?” Millie’s voice had that odd tone again.
“Then we’ll go there,” Bell said. “We’ve got the van, and at least a couple of months up our sleeves. We can drive just about anywhere in the country in that time. You will get to see Cirrus Castle, and we might even go for a walk in the Cloud Maze. I wonder if this one has channels of water flowing through it to make its own cloudy ecosystem the way the old one had.”
Millie was fairly goggling at her now.
Her face twitched.
It rippled.
She turned away abruptly.
“We’ll find it,” Bell said.
Silence.
Then Millie said in a stifled voice, “You’d really do that—drive all over the country—just so I can see a castle?”
“Well—yes. I’d like to see it too. Besides, we won’t just drive at random.”
“What’ll we do then?”
“I’ll do a seek-me.” Bell picked up her phone and woke it. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to do it. A pixel might get you.”
“And turn me into an ant, I suppose.”
Bell laughed. “Here goes.” She recited the keywords as she typed, proving she’d meant what she said. “Mildred… Cloud… Cirrus… Castle… Legend… of.. the… Cloud… Maze…” She was just closing the last set of phrasing quotes when Millie said, “Don’t.”
Bell froze. “Look, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings with the pixel joke. It was only a joke. Not a putdown.”
“You have no reason to put me down, so why would I think it was one?” Millie said.
“I just have a bad habit of pushing ideas to see where they go.”
“Oh, is that what it is.” Millie sounded a bit weary, a bit sarcastic, and a bit nervous. “But honestly, Bell. Don’t search for those terms.”
Bell tapped enter.
“Why not?” she asked, to mask the fact that she already had. Even if Millie didn’t want to know, she did.
“Because I was joking too,” Millie said flatly.
“What?”
Before Bell could clarify Millie’s comment, her phone found the search terms and started to read them aloud.
“’Legend of the Cloud Maze’ refers to the title of a book published in 2026 by Toffee Press after being shortlisted for the Blue Moon Award for the best unpublished manuscript. The debut novel of author Millie Stone, Legend of the Cloud Maze tells a story of intrigue and memory, of legends and the way hearsay shapes belief. Told through the eyes of Mildred Cloud, the horrors of the Great War play out as a persuasive background to her personal tragedy. Her fiancé, met in almost magical circumstances, has died in a hail of Turkish bullets, leaving Mildred adrift on a sea of might-have-beens. But Mildred believes in miracles. Her ancestors’ extraordinary feat in recreating the fabulous Cloud Maze haunts her. The Cloud family may have dwindled, but their last daughter will never give up her dreams. Time after time she walks the maze, but the line between faith and fate is a fine one.”
The phone paused, then asked brightly, “Would you like me to find a buy-me link? Or would you prefer me to talk about the Blue Moon—”
Millie turned, snatched the phone, and thumbed the volume button down.
Bell stared at her incredulously. Her cousin’s sallow cheeks bore blotches of dull red, and her pale eyes sparkled with a mix of malice and defiance.
“I told you not to.”
Bell blinked.
For quite two seconds she hovered on the brink of hurt and fury. For another two, her palms itched to perform a slow hand-clap while she delivered a jeering putdown.
Her lips trembled. It felt strange.
Nat/Van Nat/Van Nat/Van
So—she wasn’t the only one.
She put the phone down in the holder and grasped one of Millie’s clenched hands.
“Have you brought a copy with you?”
Millie’s angry expression trembled and became rueful.
“Yes,” she admitted in a small voice. “I’m still at the stage of wanting to carry it around.”
“Am I allowed to see it? I’ll buy a copy, obviously, but for now?”
“I’ll dig it out.”
Millie slid out to land on the beach with a crunch before opening the side door of the Kombi and extracting a book from her duffel.
She handed it to Bell.
Bell almost held her breath. There were so many scams out there—but it was all right. Toffee Press was a boutique publisher that punched above its weight. The fat paperback featured a maze with figures traversing the paths. Millie’s name adorned the lowest hedge.
Bell opened it and read the opening paragraphs.
Sensing Millie back in her seat and twitching with nerves, she closed the book and said, “You have an oblique style, rich in imagery.”
“That’s what one of my reviews said.”
“I haven’t read the reviews. So why that inept performance you treated me to?”
Millie looked angry for a moment then laughed unexpectedly. “I am verbally inept. I haven’t found a satisfactory explanation for that, but Mum says it’s probably because the part of my brain used for writing is better developed than my speech centre. I’m going to have to get better at explaining the story, in case I ever get interviewed.”
“You can practise on me if you like,” Bell said.
“I might.” Millie held out her hand for the book and Bell handed it over.
While Millie put it away, Bell reclaimed her phone and began a new search for the nearest speciality ice cream shop.
A promise was a promise, and she looked forward to getting to know this unexpected person who bore her cousin’s name.
So, that's the end of the dual story. Below are some deconstuction comments.
SO? Bell’s View complements Millie’s View, proving Millie partly right in her suppositions about Bell.
On the other hand, what she sees as effortless and unknowing superiority isn’t quite what it seems. From the information Bell has to hand, her opinion of Millie is somewhat justified. She just lacks some of the facts because Millie has never told her—possibly for fear of a putdown or being patronised, and partly because most of their association was in childhood when Bell’s extra year would have mattered.
Is it feasible that Bell’s family wouldn’t know about the award and subsequent publication of Millie’s novel?
I think so. Book awards generally get far less mainstream attention than sports, music, acting or painting.
Bell reads, but she might not be a lover of light/romantic/women’s fiction. In fact, it’s likely she was discouraged from light reading by her parents. She probably would know about the scammy prizes, awards and deals unwary authors get offered. Her parents are coolly disapproving of fakes/facsimiles, clickbait and tourist traps, so pitying or despising authors who’ve been scammed would be mill-grist to them.
Millie is probably both right and wrong to fear public interviews. She wouldn’t make the best showing, but on the other hand, the chances of her being interviewed verbally are low.
Was Bell credulous to believe Millie’s story?
Not really. Not very. She had no reason to expect Millie of sharp practice. Also, the strangeness of the maze leading to abrupt romances aside, (and there are plenty of similar superstitions out there, and after a while it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy) the skeleton of Millie’s plot-situation is plausible—just.
Millie’s wide-set eyes, in truth an inconsequential physical trait from her mother, would also work subliminally on Bell. That feature is popularly associated with innocence, candour and gentleness.
Millie’s claim that she is verbally inept and her theory that the part of my brain used for writing is better developed than my speech centre might also contribute to Bell’s (and her parents’) opinion that Millie is just a bit slow. I don’t know much about brain development, but I assume different attributes can develop at different speeds. Some children learn to talk much earlier than others, and various milestones and skills, physical, emotional and mental, also have wide schedules that may not be related to intelligence.
If we allow things such as coordination, the ability to walk backwards, and even to take experience in one field and use it in another as stages of brain development, then some people never attain dexterity in some areas while functioning perfectly well otherwise in their peer society.
Small Stuff
Millie is a diminutive for names such as Amelia, Millicent, and, yes, Mildred. It is sometimes given independently as Millie or Milly. There are about 700 people using the Millie spelling in Australia.
It lends itself to Silly Millie nicknames, and also riffs of humility.
Millie’s surname is Stone, which is fairly common surname (469 of them in Australia). It suggests solid values and perpetuating states.
Her mother is Bec, short for Rebecca.
Bell’s name might be short for Annabel, Arabella, Belle, Bella, Isabel or even Mabel, but it could also be a transplanted surname or just an unusual choice. There are about 400 of them in Australia. The French spelling, Belle, is more common. Bell generally suggests bells, or belle, the word for beautiful.
Her surname is Keyes: which is just about as common as Stone. Her mother, Bec’s sister, is not named.
Cloud: the name Millie used for her fictional family, is an uncommon surname (24 in Australia). Mildred, the name given to the last daughter of the Clouds, is almost entirely out of use: (43 in Australia, all, I think, over the age of 73.)
Bell’s comments:
When Bell mentions relocated and rebuilt towns, she’s referring to Adaminaby, Jindabyne, or Talbingo, all moved out of the way of high water levels when the Snowy River Scheme was built.
Flatworms and fungus do indeed “drive” ants around for their own purposes.
The Herbig Family Tree (South Australia), a hollow red gum with a base diameter of 7 m, was inhabited by Aboriginals and, in the 1850s, by Friedrich Herbig, his wife and their two children.
Paronella Park (a Spanish castle in Queensland) was built by Jose Paronella as a gift for his wife, Margarita, in the 1930s.
Bell’s tale of the sword swallower who swallowed neon tubing to prove a point is also true.
The Wardian Case supposedly used to transport cuttings from the original Cloud Maze was invented in 1829 by Dr Nathaniel Ward.
Fiction:
The Settler’s Hut, Cloud Bay, Cloud Bay Road and the route numbers C96P and B16T are invented, as is Princess Pearl’s Palace.
The Crocodilia Museum is not a specific place, and Techspace is made up, though there might be an educational facility with that name.
Toffee Press and the Blue Moon Literary Award are invented.
Nat/Van is an invented reference although I think it probably exists under another name.
Seek-me is the name of my own private search engine. It doesn’t exist.
Gel-LED screens for phones don’t exist as far as I know. Bell’s quip about a stray pixel latching onto Millie’s fingernail is not, as far as I know, a real urban legend, though it’s no dafter than some.
The significance of Bell’s choice of a salad sandwich and a plain lemon shirt and Millie’s of a Vegemite sandwich and a paisley shirt reflect their confidence, and lack of it, that they won’t spill things down their clothes.
