What Remains - Tracey Lee

What Remains is the first of three in this series of mystery/human interest stories about a young woman called Lily O’Hara.

The story is set predominantly on Lake Road, Bungendore. The action centres on Lake George; a lake that is infrequently full and non-existent during years of drought. The O’Hara family have lived on the road for generations, in fact since 1840. Their fate have has been as varied as the lake’s depth but 1975 was a pivotal time in the fate of the family. It was the year Lily O’Hara was born and her mother, Moya and brother, Brannen disappeared. Her father, Cillian O’Hara had taken them out for quiet afternoon sail but he returned alone. It was assumed that the two had drowned but the bodies were never recovered. Cillian could offer no explanation for his missing wife and son. The police and locals believed he was guilty of murder but without bodies no charges could be laid.

Lily is now an adult living on the Lake, preserving the family home and some of its history. One thing she doesn’t look at is her own past. Her whole family is gone, some by mysterious means. It is only when she is forced to look at the reality brought to her door by the long dead bones in the lake that she must take stock and ask what happened to her parents. She becomes a natural investigator given her work as a museum curator. She is used to putting artifacts in their places to tell a story. With help of two new friends, retired detective Mick Flynn and the detective who investigated the discovery (Phillip Swan) she goes on a mission to find the truth. But the truth is hard to find, and versions of it can be very painful and hard to accept. What Lily finds is a story constructed by fragmented puzzle pieces in the form of old photos, memories, newspapers and long lost letters. What she learns is that there are versions of the stories and like Sherlock Holmes she finds that when she excludes the impossible, what remains must be the truth.

She will also come to accept that she, like all of us, has been shaped by the past. She must decide if she will be consumed by what she finds out or strengthen by it.