Dingos Surrounded the Baby, but Something Older Watched From the Ridge

Clara Menzies didn’t grow up fearing wild things. Raised by a father who logged weather patterns for a government that mostly forgot his coordinates, she knew the outback as intimately as a twin. After marrying Tom, a Zoologist with a dry sense of humor and endless patience, she’d welcomed the quiet of Windermere Ridge.

Their daughter, Elsie, came along, barely two and already more adaptable. Life out there didn’t bend for comfort. But it made sense—until the day Clara left Elsie in the car for what she swore would be a minute. And something waited for her to do precisely that.

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