The claustrophobia of Room meets the camaraderie of Yellowjackets with a touch of Picnic at Hanging Rock in this dark, immersive, psychological thriller debut with a speculative/lite-horror edge.
Christmas Eve, 1974.
As Cyclone Tracy tears through Darwin, four girls disappear into the heart of the outback. No tracks. No bodies. No answers.
Decades later, one returns.
She claims to be one of the missing. But is she? There is no proof of who she is, only a keepsake that once belonged to another missing woman - Sally, a teen mother whose disappearance never mattered to anyone but Von, the daughter she left behind. Sally's return rekindles the cold case, as desperate families plead for answers - and a dark mystery begins to surface.
A hidden bunker ... a ghost ... scratches on a concrete wall ... pictures inside a View-Master ... and the little girl who understood the darkness better than anyone.
Inspired by true events, Stay Buried is the darkly thrilling tale of secrets unearthed, the will to survive and a legend that refuses to die.
Von
20 December 2004
For most, Darwin existed in two states: the ramshackle city before Cyclone Tracy hit and the modern one that emerged from its ashes.
Von saw reminders of the old city everywhere. In the umbrella-like canopies of the three-decade-old trees planted en masse after Darwin’s destruction and in the rising sun as it pushed against the rebuilt cathedral roof, casting its shadow across Smith Street and all the way to the sea beyond. The bones of the first cathedral, built of shale hauled from the local quarry, had barely survived a direct hit during the Second World War and multiple turn aways by lesser cyclones.
It had been no match to the mother of all storms.
Tourists drinking at the Vic, or visiting the crocodile park, didn’t understand how danger existed here. They hadn’t experienced the terror. For Von, the scars had never fully healed. How could they? Tracy, a category four tropical cyclone, had killed over sixty people and left hundreds more nowhere to be found; either never reported missing or simply gone.
Decades later, the city bore the weight of what had been lost. Even now, as she slowed before the cathedral, breathing hard, Von could feel the past press against her. Her gaze lifted to the plaque above the doorway. The doorway that had endured.
This plaque was unveiled by
the Christ Church Anglican Cathedral and the people of Darwin as a tribute to the Angels
lost to us on Christmas 1974, but not forgotten.
May heaven welcome these four souls who represent the best of us, Miranda, Brenda, Angela and Lisa-Marie.
Rest in Peace
Ever since that Christmas, those sweet young women had appeared in newspaper articles, documentaries and memorials. Goosebumps prickled across the back of Von’s neck as unease stirred inside her. It always did whenever she thought about the unfairness of it all.
She hadn’t been inside the cathedral made of tin, concrete and glass since she’d been a teenager. Not since Aunt Cleo had taken her to hear the children’s choir, on what was the tenth anniversary of Tracy. Mothers had worn Easter-coloured dresses and fathers had congregated together in shorts and ironed shirts. The women had laid out jellies and fairy bread by the memorial window, an offering amid the remembrance. That was the day Von first learned there was a right way and a wrong way to go missing.
Standing taller, telling herself to toughen up, she pushed through the doors and into the cool, dim interior of the cathedral. For the thirtieth anniversary, faded images of the Angels decorated the rear stone wall, printed sheets under each of the photos identifying the three teenagers and the little girl who would forever remain young. As if everyone in Darwin didn’t already know who they were.
Von handed her driver’s licence to the woman at the temporary desk positioned to face inwards, feeling a knot of tension tighten in her back as the woman’s gaze hovered over her worn red flannel top, baggy jeans and Volleys, until finally coming to rest on the greys in her ponytail and the bags beneath her brown eyes.
‘Evelyn Munst.’ The woman studied her clipboard. ‘I don’t see you here.’
‘I was invited,’ Von said, searching past the woman for the others.
The keeper of the clipboard arched her eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea. It’s difficult for the families at this time of year.’
And it isn’t for me?
It was always like this. The people of Darwin behaved as if the Angels were worth more than any other missing person. It didn’t matter that her mother had gone missing a few months before the Angels, because no one wanted Sally to be an Angel. They wanted the girls’ legend to remain pristine. Uncomplicated. Lumping Sally into one category meant they didn’t need to acknowledge her other sides, how she’d been a mother and just so damn young.
‘Can I please go in?’ Von asked.
The woman frowned when she looked at her clipboard again. ‘I don’t know who approved …’ With reluctance, she pointed to the empty wooden pews. The type that forced those who sat there to take God’s word. ‘You can sit over there.’
With a tight smile etched on her lips, Von thanked the woman, but didn’t do as she was told. The families were at the front and it terrified her to finally see them in person. Instead, she lingered before the photos of the Angels hung on the back wall, studying them as if she hadn’t seen those same photos hundreds of times.
The first photograph showed Miranda, her red hair falling in ringlets just above her shoulders, a wide smile on her face, though her gaze seemed to stare through the camera. In the enlarged and blurry photo, she leaned against a park bench. A stack of books balanced on her hip. The media always stuck to a small set of stories about the girls. When referring to Miranda, they said she was the smart one. That she’d graduated from Darwin High at the top of her class. Apparently, her entire personality was the books in her hands.
People often did the same to Sally—to them, she was just someone who’d taken cash for sex.
Von risked a look back over her shoulder at the woman by the desk, who again tried to urge her to the pews by shooing her in their direction.
‘In a minute,’ Von said.
Next to Miranda’s collection of photos hung a colour photo of Brenda, a spiky-haired Larrakia teenager who grinned up at the stands at a school concert, an acoustic guitar strapped to her middle, clunky watch on her wrist and her hands raised above her head. Thick eyeliner was drawn under each eye, visible even as she winked. It was taken before she’d won a scholarship to study music in London. People said she would’ve ended up producing rock bands if she hadn’t come home for Christmas.
In a crisp picture, Angela puckered her lips. Her wavy blonde hair framed her face and her blue eyes smirked at someone out of sight. Despite only being nineteen when she went missing, she’d already been engaged to Eddie for months. Local lore claimed her ghost would grant true love to whoever asked and, in that tradition, one corner of her frame tilted towards the ground, filled with the desperate notes from young girls begging for help.
Lisa-Marie, the youngest Angel, was doll-like and small for her age. In the only known image of the nine-year-old, she curtseyed and grinned. The exact miniature of her sister, Angela.
They were all so perfect. Von shook her head. Not perfect—otherworldly. It was hard to imagine them as people who’d had hopes and dreams. Not from those photos, anyway. At least, she thought, as she walked past the desk and into the cathedral, there were photos of the Angels. Something the families could cherish. Von wished she had the same for her mother.
She scuffed the worn red carpet that ran through the centre of the pews, chewing the inside of her cheek as she neared the small group seated in the first two rows of the modern cathedral. She feigned interest in the huge concrete wall ahead of her and its contrast with the heritage facade. The light that came from the enormous glass windows on either side of the wall filled the space with an expansive sense of transparency. Clean thoughts.
That sinking feeling returned when she lingered by the second pew—she didn’t belong.
For decades, each of the Angels’ families had been drawn together and, each time, they’d grown older, wearier.
These eight people glanced back at her now. Their faces were as recognisable to Von as the Prime Minister’s, because these were the people she’d watched on the news for as long as she could remember. However, the only person to greet her was Mary, a woman just shy of seventy. She struggled to her feet and pulled Von into a tight hug, her hip bones protruding through her baggy clothes and into Von’s thigh. The strength of Mary’s motherly arms made it easy to relax, and only then did Von realise how worried she’d been about Mary’s reaction to seeing her.
Mary held her at arm’s length. ‘They didn’t tell me you’d be here.’
‘Got the call last night. Any idea what’s happening?’
The edges of Mary’s eyes wrinkled. ‘Maybe something to do with your interview?’ She searched her handbag. ‘Anyway, I’d be the last to know, wouldn’t I? This lot—’ she nodded at the people sitting ahead of them, ‘—wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire.’
Von smiled. ‘That makes two of us.’
Mary laughed until she coughed. She used her inhaler to catch her breath and Von helped her ease back into the pew. If anyone had reason to cling to her smokes, it was Mary. It was tough to lose one, let alone two.
After a few worrying rattles, Mary wiped her eyes. ‘How’s Cleo?’
‘She’s fine.’ Von thought of the woman who’d raised her and the way her mouth hung open when the day nurse reminded her that Von wasn’t Sally. ‘About the same.’
Mary patted Von’s knee. ‘Terrible to linger. Me and her have been friends for a lot of years. I should visit more often, especially since it’s nearly Christmas. God knows we all need the company more than we’d like to admit.’
Von thought of the silly dreams she’d had as a kid and swallowed hard. ‘Yeah.’
‘How’s work? You still at the bus depot?’
‘Still there. But I’m not the cleaner anymore, I’ve had a few promotions.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’ll have to go back later. My boss only gave me the morning off.’
The door to Smith Street slammed open and a gust of wind carried the echo of a street cleaner through the hall and, with it, the harrowing squawk of an unhappy ibis. A group of people gathered around the woman with the list and then came forwards. Von recognised the tallest.
‘The guy from TV?’ she asked.
Mary nodded. ‘That’s the Commissioner.’
Out of uniform, dressed in a casual shirt and slacks, the Commissioner kept his eyes low, giving them all a wide berth before disappearing into a room at the side of the cathedral.
Mary pulled a pack of smokes from her handbag and checked how many she had left. ‘Lorry said they’ve found something. She said he’s had boys searching on both sides of the Stuart Highway, from Pine Creek to Humpty Doo.’
‘That’s got to be over two hundred kilometres,’ Von said. ‘What do you think it is?’
‘I’ve been through this before, love.’ Mary spoke without emotion. ‘It’ll be nothing. Every few years, they call us together. Generally speaking, it’s here.’ She gestured to the stained glass window dedicated to those lost during Tracy. ‘It’s meant to keep us calm. Give us privacy. I wouldn’t get your hopes up. It’s usually nothing. A box of dingo bones or something that’s disappeared as quick as them Min Min lights.’
The mention of bones seemed blasphemous somehow. After all, the smiling faces of four dead girls watched on from behind them.
Von glanced at her phone. Better that than to meet the gaze of the family members turning in their seats to see where the Commissioner had gone. She slunk lower, all too aware that they didn’t want her there. Why would they? Her mother was no angel.
'Stay Buried is a fraught, chilling yet compassionate novel that will leave its readers guessing right up until the end.' -- Kirstyn McDermott, Australian author of WHAT THE BONES KNOW
'Set against the evocative backdrop of Darwin and the legendary Stuart Highway, this is a story of darkness, survival and lies that refuse to stay buried.' -- Kate Horan, Australian author of ON THE EDGE
On shelves: 28th July 2026