A Corner of White

by Jaclyn Moriarty

‘Can’t say a thing around this town,’ sighed Shelby, ‘without somebody hearing.’

  Jimmy shrugged and went back to his trowel, and the six of them kept walking.

  ‘What’s that whistling sound?’ said Elliot.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Nikki. ‘Whistling.’

  ‘No. It’s more than that—it’s like a lower sound, like the wind.’

  ‘Ah then, it’s probably the wind.’

  They passed Isabella Tamborlaine’s place, and now they were on the commercial part of Broad Street. A door swung open just ahead of them, and out came Norma Lisle, town vet.

  She was holding a program player to her chest, its cords and cables dangling.

  ‘Just taking this next door,’ she said. ‘Seized up in the middle of The Greenbergs last night—right at the bit where that plumber—the one that’s always so handy when the characters’ toilets block up—when he’s about to kiss the schoolteacher with the temperamental kitchen sink. Any of you kids see the show?’

  ‘He went ahead and kissed her,’ said Cody. ‘But don’t let it get you down that you missed it, Norma. It wasn’t such a great kiss. And I kept wondering if he’d washed his hands.’

  ‘Ah, Cody,’ laughed Norma Lisle. ‘It’s the best thing there is in the televisual waves, isn’t it, though I can see from your friends’ faces here that we might be alone in that opinion. I’ll just pop in and see if the Twicklehams can fix this, but listen, Elliot, before I do, how’s that Butterfly Child?’

  Elliot swayed slightly on his crutches.

  ‘She doesn’t do much except sleep, Norma,’ he said. ‘There’s butterflies and other insects hanging around day and night, and sometimes she heads out for a ride on one of them. But when she gets back she falls straight asleep. Couple of times she has been awake and I’ve tried to say, “Hey,” and “How’s things?”, but she just stares at me.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Norma. ‘Well, I cannot wait for the crop effect to start working. Not that I have any crops, of course, but I’ve got my lemon trees and my little herb garden—just some pots on my patio. I’m that excited about the day they’re going to start thriving! For everyone else, of course, not just me,’ she amended quickly.

  ‘It’ll happen,’ said Kala. ‘Always takes a while.’

  Then, as Norma reached a hand toward the door of Twickleham Repair, Shelby said, loud and clear: ‘Give your program player to me.’

  Norma stopped, surprised, and turned back.

  They could see through the glass into the repair shop. Fleta Twickleham was standing at the workbench, leaning forward, ready with a smile.

  ‘There’s a supermart in Sugarloaf does repairs cheap,’ Shelby explained. ‘I’m heading out there later today—got a broken player of my own.’

  She held out her arms, one paler and thinner than the other, ready to take the program player.

  ‘Oh, well, now,’ said Norma, and she turned away again, pressing on the door so that its bell jangled. ‘That’d just be a nuisance for you!’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t.’ Shelby wrenched the player right out of Norma’s arms. ‘You always take such good care of my dogs when they’re sick,’ she added. ‘Least I can do is take care of your program player.’

  Norma let the door thud closed.

  She studied the faces of the six teenagers. Then she shrugged.

  ‘Well, that’s kind of you, Shelby! Guess it’ll save me time, and I have got an arthritic pig crying quietly in my waiting room!’

  The others all agreed that the pig needed Norma more than her program player did, said their goodbyes, and waited while the door to her vet’s rooms closed behind her.

  Then they turned to Shelby.

  ‘You really taking a player into Sugarloaf tonight?’ Nikki asked.

  ‘Nah. Don’t even have one. I’ll fix this for Norma myself. Taught myself how to fly the crop-duster, I can figure this out.’

  ‘Call me later if you can’t do it,’ Kala said. ‘I’ll see if I can track down a manual.’

  ‘The way you took that thing out of her arms,’ said Gabe. ‘Guess you got your strength back after all.’

  They laughed, heading up the street again. Behind the glass of Twickleham Repair, Fleta’s face creased with confusion.

  She slept on her side, the Butterfly Child, little hands clasped together, knees drawn up under the sapphire-blue dress. Elliot wasn’t sure any more that it was a dress; seemed like it might be part of her, a sort of skin.

  It was late, past midnight, and he’d woken with the moonlight splashing on his coverlet and come downstairs. The moonlight was more composed here, shining in neat shafts and bars, lighting up the windows of the doll’s house.

  She was maybe as long as his index finger, but the tininess was more in her features, and now, in his half-asleep state, Elliot felt a surge of something—of how confounding it was, that tininess. Those little hands, little fingers, little bare feet with their tiny, tiny toes. The lashes of her closed eyes, the sweetness of her nose, the soft breath of pale yellow hair across the pillow, the bend of her elbow, tilt of her chin.

  What was it about littleness that made it catch at your heart like this? Elliot’s mind ran with little things—snowflakes, hailstones, raindrops; the pin you put through the hole when you clasped your watch. You could say she was as tall as his finger, sure, but how to describe the size of that dimple in her cheek, and the knuckles of her hands?

  He thought of raspberries—the separate little globes, or pockets, on a raspberry. He thought of the tiny bubbles that form around the edges of a glass of fresh-squeezed juice. The hesitant ‘x’ that Kala added to her name when she wrote him notes. Smaller than that. The dot on an i.

  It came to him, a memory of a day when his cousin, Corrie-Lynn, was just a few weeks old. So he, Elliot, must have been about nine. Uncle Jon and Auntie Alanna had been visiting, new baby in a sling around Jon’s shoulder, and they were talking about how they’d just cut the baby’s fingernails for the first time. How frightened they’d been of hurting those little fingertips.

  Alanna had saved the clipping from the pinkie nail; she’d taped it to a piece of black notepaper, and they’d all laughed at her about that, but she hadn’t minded; and she’d taken it out of her purse to show. They’d all exclaimed. Just look how tiny that is. That little sliver of fingernail. Can it be real?

  The Butterfly Child: she was that kind of tiny. She should be taped to a piece of black notepaper and folded, safe, into somebody’s purse.

  His mind kept tumbling with thoughts of tiny things: those miniature nuts, bolts, screws, washers, springs—the ones that his father kept in empty margarine containers and used tweezers or magnets to pick up.

  He rubbed his face hard with both his hands and looked at her sleeping face. Her eyelids! How small were those little eyelids? And could they be twitching a little? Was she dreaming behind those eyes?

  It was wrong to keep watching; he was spying, but he wanted to look even closer. What he needed—

  Then it came to him.

  The thing that was missing from his father’s possessions, the thing that was wrong or askew.

  In the Sheriff’s station, Hector and Jimmy were both typing at their desks.

  ‘Now did I tell you,’ said Hector, leaning forward to frown at the report in his typewriter, ‘that I heard from the folk in the Golden Coast? About that missing persons report you figured out for them the other day?’

  Jimmy hit the space bar twice. ‘The sound technician,’ he recalled. ‘One with all the money from the prize win. No, you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘You were right,’ Hector said.

  ‘Ah, that’s a shame.’

  ‘It is. They found his body at the nephew’s place, just like you said they would. Now how, Jimmy, did you know that?’

  Hector looked sideways once, then turned the handle, winding the completed report out of the machine.

  ‘I did background checks on them all, not just the ones who stood to inherit, and turn
ed out the nephew had spent years bending Colours in Nature Strip. For one thing, they’ve got some loopy hereditary laws in Nature Strip—up there, the nephew would’ve got the fortune. I figured, he maybe got it into his head that the same would be the case in G.C. See, bending Colours for too long can bend your mind a little. You start to mix things up. You start to see Colours, always there, just at the edge of your vision.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’ Hector said, surprised.

  ‘Well, now—’ Jimmy began doubtfully, but the door to the station jangled, and they both looked up.

  It was Elliot Baranski.

  Jimmy ran to open the door wider, so Elliot could hop his way in on his crutches.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Elliot Baranski!’ said Hector, studying the plaster on Elliot’s leg. Cody had painted a complicated pattern there, diamonds overlaid with scorpions.

  ‘Look at that decoration!’ Hector exclaimed. ‘It’s just like—’ But he found he could not think what it was like, so he asked after the ankle bone instead. Then he and Jimmy asked after Elliot’s mother, and the farm, and the Butterfly Child.

  Eventually, Elliot said, ‘Anyhow, the reason I came here was—Hector, remember when we made the list of things that might be missing from Dad’s stuff? Well, last night—in the middle of the night—I remembered something else that was missing.’

  Hector and Jimmy both blinked.

  ‘His magnifying glass.’

  ‘His magnifying glass?’

  ‘It was special to him. My mother ordered it from the best glassmakers in Jagged Edge, for his birthday a few years back. He used it all the time, and I’ve been thinking lately that something was wrong about his tools; something missing maybe, and finally, I realised—his magnifying glass is gone.’

  There was quiet in the station for a moment. Hector’s face shadowed. The bandages were gone now, so you could see the healing welts crossing his cheeks. You could see the shapes the scars were going to be.

  He scratched at the scabs on his hands.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘You think that’s the kind of thing he might have been carrying home from work? In the pocket of his overcoat maybe?’

  Elliot shook his head. ‘No. He had tools at home, including a cheap magnifying glass—he’d have just used that if he needed one. And this magnifying glass, it was big.’ He held out his hands to demonstrate. ‘Had a special case, sort of a tartan green.’

  ‘And you’re sure it’s not with his things?’

  Elliot shrugged. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Could he have loaned it out to someone?’

  ‘Doubt it. He wouldn’t even let me use it, not unless he was watching over my shoulder.’

  ‘Could it have been left behind in the repair shop when you packed it up? Maybe fallen off the shelf and got under something? You want to ask the Twicklehams about it?’

  Elliot’s gaze was steady for a moment.

  ‘We did a pretty thorough job,’ he said, ‘cleaning the shop out. Don’t think we would have left anything.’

  Hector nodded slowly. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let me add it to the report and have a think about it. About what it might mean.’ Then he paused and fixed Elliot with his own gaze. ‘What do you think it means?’

  Elliot shrugged. ‘I guess it doesn’t mean anything. I guess he did have it with him that night, after all. In the pocket of his overcoat, probably. Anyhow,’ Elliot swung around on his crutches, and Jimmy stood again to hold the door. ‘Just wanted to let you know.’

  He turned back, though, when the door was almost closed; used a crutch to hold it.

  ‘I guess,’ he said, ‘there’s been no news?’

  ‘Soon as there is,’ Hector said firmly, ‘I’ll let you know.’

  Elliot nodded and the door closed behind him.

  It was quiet in the station for a moment.

  ‘Don’t you say a word,’ said Hector, not looking at Jimmy.

  So Jimmy didn’t. They both started typing their reports again, every click and clack a kind of punch.

  When Elliot got home from the Sheriff’s station, the house was big with quiet.

  His mother was still out at the greenhouse, he guessed. He checked the doll’s house and the Butterfly Child was asleep.

  In the kitchen, he made himself a cup of coffee, cut a piece of chocolate-coconut cake, took a pile of homework from his backpack and sat at the table.

  There was a faint rustle and clatter. A bird landing on the porch railing. The fridge buzzed. The bird flew away again. He opened his mathematics textbook, then closed it.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, looking down at his plastered ankle.

  He pushed the chair back and limped upstairs, leaning and pulling on the banisters all the way. He found painkillers in the bathroom cupboard, took a couple and headed to his bedroom.

  He opened the bottom drawer and dragged it all out: folders, books, notes, photocopied articles, newspaper clippings, official documents. He dumped them on his bed and leafed through the documents: Missing Persons Report: Abel Garek Baranski; Missing Persons Report: Mischka Elizabeth Tegan, and there it was.

  Coroner’s Report: Jonathan Kasper Baranski.

  The report on his Uncle Jon.

  To look at it, he had to breathe himself sideways. He had taught himself this trick of shifting, inside his head, so that only part of him saw the words. Even doing that, he had to skim fast—past phrases like, lacerations to the face, neck, torso and severed carotid artery; severed spinal cord—and then he found what he was looking for.

  In a box in the bottom-right corner, the coroner had written her Conclusions.

  Injuries consistent with attack from a Colour in the Grey-Purple range; most likely a third-level Purple. Injuries are also somewhat consistent with the attack of a wild animal (tiger, cougar, bear, dragon, wolf pack), but I have ruled these out as unlikely since no evidence of teeth marks or ‘feeding’ on the victim; also, no evidence of scorching or singeing (highly common in dragon attack). Again, it is not impossible that a person, or group of persons (perhaps Wandering Hostiles), wielding daggers, machetes, trench knives, etc., could have inflicted the injuries, but in the absence of evidence of human involvement in the attack (blood at scene is that of victim alone, no traces under fingernails of victim, etc.), and noting that no Wandering Hostiles have claimed responsibility, which would be the norm, third-level Purple seems the likely cause of death.

  In the adjoining box for Additional Notes, the coroner had written:

  The victim was found in the vicinity of the abandoned truck of his brother, Abel Baranski; victim was last seen leaving the Toadstool Pub in the company of both Abel and a woman, Mischka Tegan. I have been asked to comment on whether these other parties may have been involved in the victim’s death, either as perpetrators or possibly (unconfirmed) fellow victims. In relation to the former, see my previous conclusions re human involvement; in relation to the latter, I note that Purples are occasionally known to slay one victim and abduct others, carrying them away from the scene. Accordingly, one could speculate as follows: the Purple attacked the truck carrying Jon, Abel and Mischka; they pulled over, hoping to flee into the woods; the Purple slaughtered Jon, and then carried Abel and Mischka away (in which case, I would ordinarily expect their remains to be found somewhere in the vicinity of the original attack); however, in the absence of any further evidence, this is pure speculation.

  Elliot returned the report to its manila folder.

  This is pure speculation, he thought.

  There were people in this town—not many, but a handful—who were convinced that Elliot’s father and uncle had both fallen in love with Mischka, and fought over her. That his father had killed Jon, leaving him dead on the side of the road and fleeing with Mischka.

  There were others—most of Bonfire, probably—who thought that, more likely, Abel and Mischka had decided to run away together. Taking the train, or maybe a boat upriver. They’d asked Jon to take the truck home to Abel’s farm and pass
on the news, but the Purple attack had happened while Jon was en-route.

  The rumours had started right away, and Elliot, hollow with shock, had felt their poison pouring into him.

  Then the Sheriff had sat him down one day. It was in the Bakery, in the Town Square, he remembered; autumn chill in the air; the Sheriff in that black corduroy jacket he liked so much.

  Hector had taken out this very coroner’s report and made Elliot read it.

  ‘This’ll hurt like the blazes to read,’ he had said. ‘But look here now,’ and he’d run his finger hard under the phrase: absence of evidence of human involvement.

  ‘I’ve seen my share of love triangles,’ Hector had said. ‘And yes, a man could kill his brother over love. It happens. But when it does, it’s a fist fight got out of hand, not machetes and hunting knives! You don’t slash your brother to pieces over a girl. I’ll tell you categorically, Elliot. Your father did not do this to your uncle.’

  Elliot remembered the heat of his coffee mug at the time; the Sheriff said those words and Elliot realised his hands were ice cold and held them around his coffee mug.

  ‘As for running off with the teacher,’ Hector had shrugged, ‘I’m not saying they were lovers, but let’s say, hypothetically, they were. Well, I’ve seen my share of that, too, lovers running off. But they make plans. They come up with the idea, get cold feet, get more determined. Inch their way towards it. Never heard of someone deciding in a pub one night and asking his brother to let the family know. They write a note. They take money out of their bank account. And listen, they pack. Now, tell me again what you think might be missing from your dad’s things.’

  ‘Well,’ Elliot had said. ‘Like I said, there’s his overcoat and hat. He’d’ve been wearing those. And the other things he was wearing. His wallet. His watch. We thought maybe a framed antique map was missing, one he used to have on his workshop wall, but turned out he’d given that to Jon and Alanna for the front room of the Watermelon. So, that’s it.’

  ‘No medications? No photographs? Not those spell casings he got from the Magical North that he was so proud of?’