The lives of two young girls touch for the first time in the West MacDonnells on the rim of the remote and beautiful Kings Canyon: Anna, a sea child from Flinders Island, meets Carrie, a desert child, born and raised in the heart of the continent. Carrie, deserted by her drug-using mother at an early age, is brought up by her grandparents on Kings Creek Station in the West MacDonnells. Anna, equally passionate about her island and its turbulent seas, is raised by her mother and grandfather on the Bass Strait island.
Years later and a thousand kilometres north of Kings Canyon, in the Douglas Daly Rivers system, the two girls, now 13, meet again. A near drowning, where Carrie saves Anna, deeply affects their core selves. The lives of Carrie and Anna resonate in the lives of their mothers, Caro and Jenifer. Caro, Carrie’s mother, saved Jenifer from drowning in a river near Castlemaine, where the two girls lived as teenagers. Once close friends, Caro and Jenifer are now estranged and have lost touch since Caro’s flight from the Central Australian desert, her escape to France, and her determination to become a singer. The voices of Caro and Jenifer are heard through the unsent letters written to Carrie by her mother, and the internal voice of Jenifer’s story. Anna, a sea child from Flinders Island, meets Carrie, a desert child, born and raised in the heart of the continent. A tumultuous friendship follows which is echoed by the friendship of their two mothers, part of a dark secret that both separates and binds them together.
* Ages 15 - 18.
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