∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
Inside the apartment, she dumped her bag by the door and headed upstairs to the bedroom.
Underneath the bed was the red and white striped rug, just like Rick had said. She shifted it aside, but couldn’t find the gap Rick had mentioned. So she lifted one of the bed legs and kicked the rug out from under. Then she got down on her side and reached a hand underneath, feeling for a space. The floorboards were old and split and the join between each board and its neighbour was wide from age and warping. But not wide enough for a Satsuma bauble. She squeezed herself further in, sliding her hand under the loose rug.
There was an uneven space where a knot in the wood must have worked loose. She pressed it with her fingertips, trying to figure out its size. Then she slid further in until her head was under the bed and she was flat on her stomach with one arm extended. Downstairs, her phone began to ring. Kaneko swore.
Curling her fingers into the small gap in the floor, she felt something hard and cold and round. She inched closer. With two fingers, she traced the shape of the bauble down to the long metal pin at the end. The hatpin. She tried to lift it, but the bauble stayed stuck beneath the floor.
Gently she pulled the hatpin until she found a spot where the gap widened and she could draw it free. She clutched the pin close. The golden dragon watched her, his lips pulled back in a grimace, his long moustache lifted by some invisible breeze. Even in the dark under the bed, he shone. The five tiny claws on each foot sparked with light. The cracklature of the Satsuma glaze around him made him, in contrast, seem long and lithe and smooth.
Her phone was ringing again. Kaneko pulled herself free of the bed and the ringing got louder. Then she realised the noise was coming up the stairs towards her.
She scrambled to her feet, clasping the pin in her hand, the dragon pressed to the web of her thumb.
A shadow stepped into the room, and then the man who owned it.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Your next appointment,” the man smiled.
He raised the phone and shook it, like he was expecting it to rattle. He was pale and bald. A shop dummy before they applied the wig, as featureless and bland as a canvas, as uncanny as a walking corpse.
He said, “I got your number.”
“But how’d you know my address?” Not even Merv was dumb enough to share that information.
“I followed the numbers,” the man said. “The ringing of your phone. See? It’s my gift.”
Freak.
Kaneko found herself taking two steps back for every step he took forward. Her back was against the wall before he’d even taken four steps. She slid sideways, the hatpin clenched stupidly between both hands.
“Let’s get this straight,” Kaneko said. “You look like you’re planning something violent. Is that right?”
The man grinned. “You’re very direct.”
“That’s right. And I want you to know, if you try something on me, they’ll find you.”
“How?”
“I’ve got your number, too, remember? My boss spoke to you.”
“Who’d believe it?” he asked. “We haven’t met, we’ve never spoken, you’ve never come to my house. Don’t you see? I could be anyone. But it’s very unlikely I’m the person who owns the phone number in your phone.”
“The police might believe it,” she said. “They have a taskforce for people with creepy powers like yours.”
He hesitated, but just for an instant. Then he laughed.
“Oh? That should make all the difference.”
He lunged and she whirled. She leapt over the bed and towards the stairs behind him. He came for her. She ran, one hand to the wall. She’d made it down five steps before he had her. He wrenched a fistful of her hair and she spun. She screamed. She reached up her hands to save herself.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
“And you stabbed him with a hatpin?” the detective asked.
“Yes, Detective Palmer. A hatpin,” Kaneko replied.
Detective Palmer had a habit of wincing whenever Kaneko spoke. She had brown skin and dark eyes and a long brown plait like a cable that hung straight at her back.
Kaneko memorised the word cable, determined to use it later.
“How many times?” Palmer winced.
“What?”
“How many times did you stab him with the hatpin?”
Kaneko shrugged. “Enough that he stopped coming for me.”
She held her hands still in her lap. There was blood to her elbows, blood on her skirt, her shirt, blood — sprayed and dried — across her face. She could feel it catching at the sides of her eyes when she blinked. She tried not to blink.
Palmer was looking at Kaneko’s hands.
Kaneko said, “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Could be. Depends.”
“On whether I have previous convictions, that sort of thing? Whether I’m a good person?”
Palmer made a note in a small, black notebook. “Depends who’s doing the deciding.”
“Right.”
“You’d never met him before?” Palmer asked.
“He said he had my number.” Kaneko replied.
Detective Palmer nodded. Just like that, she nodded. As if she’d heard it all before.
One of the paramedics handed Kaneko an ice pack. Not knowing quite what to do with it, she pressed it to her temple. She tried not to look at the browning smears on her arm.
She asked, “Who else can do that? Just, hear a number and follow it to a phone? Across miles?”
Palmer winced. “No one I know.”
“Right,” Kaneko said. “Right. That’s good, I guess.”
There was a pause, during which time Kaneko’s mind was blessedly, remarkably blank for the first time in a long time. She felt swept clean.
Palmer stood beside her. Not even waiting. Just standing.
“You believe me, though, right?” Kaneko asked her.
“Yeah. I believe you.”
Kaneko let out her breath. She pressed the ice bag to an ache along the top of her shoulder. Her notebook was open across her knee. She’d grabbed it before she’d even reached for the phone. But the open page of the notebook held nothing but blood-red smears.
Around her, the forensics team dusted the balustrade for prints and took photos of the spatter on the steps. Spatter. Not a big enough word for the mess the stranger had left behind.
She watched someone bag the fallen hatpin.
“Will I get that back?” she asked.
Palmer glanced up at the forensics team. “Eventually. It’s a nice example. Satsuma, right?”
“Yeah. Family heirloom.”
“Nobody wears hatpins anymore,” Palmer lamented.
“Nobody wears hats,” Kaneko reasoned. “It’s all baseball caps nowdays. Is he dead?”
“Oh, he’s dead all right. You doubted it?”
“The hatpin’s so small.”
“Sometimes location is all that matters,” Palmer told her.
“Good.” Kaneko reversed the ice bag, letting the cold numb her. “I mean…”
“I know.” Palmer made another note in her notebook and looked up, like she was seeing the room for the first time.
“Will I be charged?” Kaneko asked.
“I can’t say for sure.”
But the detective fixed Kaneko with her gaze and gave a slow shake of her head. No.
“I don’t understand why he came after me,” Kaneko said. “I mean, why me?”
“He probably figured he’d found the perfect randomiser,” Palmer replied. “Random victim, random crime. Worst damn things to try and solve.”
“It’s a good thing you guys came, then,” Kaneko said. “You taking this back to the taskforce?”
Palmer looked at her. “This is the taskforce.”
She nodded at her partner, an overweight man in a sagging trench coat. He was crouched on the staircase with the forensics team.
“That’s i
t?” Kaneko asked.
Palmer nodded.
Kaneko said, “Off the record, though. There’s more of you, right?”
Palmer shook her head.
There was quiet.
“So, this taskforce—” Kaneko began.
“Forget it,” Palmer flipped her notebook closed and put it into a pocket of her jacket. “I’m not here to be interviewed.”
“Might make a difference to people if they knew the police are already on the trail of … whatever it is that’s giving people these powers.”
“Might make a difference to the bad guys, too,” Palmer replied. “But it’s not my call.”
“I’ve got a superpower, too,” Kaneko said.
Palmer raised her eyebrows in a kind of this will be interesting expression. She crossed her arms and stood staring at Kaneko where she sat.
“It’s called tenacity. I’m going to call you, Detective Palmer. I’m going to keep calling you and I am never going to stop.”
Palmer shrugged, like it was all the same to her. “I get that a lot.” Then she reached to put a hand under Kaneko’s elbow and eased her to her feet.
“Ambulance is waiting,” Palmer said.
“Wait.”
Kaneko threw her notebook towards the hallway side table, where it slid to the floor. Then she pulled a new one out from a drawer, holding it carefully between finger and thumb. It was a fat notebook with wide, lined pages. She figured she was going to need it.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
Firefly Epilogue by Jodi Cleghorn
Leah stood on the pontoon searching the twilight for the familiar blond head among the multitude of ebony ones bobbing up and down on the sampans below. Tiny lanterns flickered to life on the bows and the banter of the Malay rivermen rose to greet her.
“Excuse me,” she called down to a wizened old man pulling his sampan alongside the pontoon. “I’m looking for Andy.”
“Come, come. See fireflies. Very pretty,” he said, beckoning her to step onto his boat. “Ling take you.”
She shook her head. “I’m looking for an Australian. Blond hair. Tall.”
“No blond man here.”
“But I went down the river with him last night. Andy told me to meet him back here tonight.”
Ling shook his head. “No Andy here. You no wait. Come with Ling.”
Leah shook her head and walked away, the pontoon shifting with each careful step. She walked up the jetty, through the covered waiting area and across the picnic area to an empty bench. She gazed across the river, to the ramshackle flotilla and wondered where Andy was.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
“I want to book your whole boat. One hundred and sixty ringgits for four people, right?” Leah said. “I don’t want some dumb-arse stranger, who can’t shut up, spoiling it for me.”
Having said her bit, she looked down into the fast-flowing Selangor River tugging at the edge of the pontoon, putting it into an ever-changing pas de deux with the sampan. All she could think about was how she would step into the tiny boat, in the fading light, without pitching herself into the muddy water.
“Get on and we’ll discuss a fair price when you’ve stopped looking shit scared about falling in,” the blond-haired man said, reaching a hand out to help her on. “I’m Andy.”
“Leah.” She grasped his hand in her sticky, damp one and they shook. “That obvious, huh.”
He nodded and she laughed, stepping off the pontoon.
The sampan pitched beneath her weight and for a moment she hung over the latte-coloured river, her body tensing to hit the water. His hand tightened on her forearm, her second foot hit the boat and she half-fell, half-sat and the boat righted itself.
“You always so graceful?”
“Pretty much.”
He watched her trying to reach the money in her pocket without moving too much. “Don’t worry about payment until I have you safely back on dry land.” He noted her bare arms and legs and said, “You do know about the mozzies.”
“I’ve got so much insect spray on there’s probably a new hole in the ozone layer above my hut.” She ran a hand down her arm, nose wrinkling at the sticky residue. “I’m terrified it’s full of DDT. The girl in the pharmacy didn’t speak any English and the bottle’s all in Malay.”
“Be more terrified of malaria. I’ve had it twice. Thought I was going to die the first time. Saw Steam Boat Willy come chortling through the wall the second time. That Lariam is heavy shit. Help yourself,” he said, pointing to an old flannelette shirt and an orange life jacket in the bottom of the boat. “I can’t vouch for the last time the shirt was washed, but it’ll keep the mozzies out.”
She grabbed the shirt. It smelled of engine oil and sandalwood when she pulled it over her head. The material stuck to her damp, tacky arms. It felt smothering in the heat and strapping the life jacket over the top only made it worse.
“If I got malaria I’d probably be in a room full of Smurfs doing Beyonce covers.”
“Sounds like a Gary Larson version of hell.”
“We can always blame it on Wayne.”
“Yeah, the world always needs a scapegoat.” They laughed and Andy threw his weight behind the long pole to push them away from the pontoon and out into current. “You’re a bit of a Larson fan then.”
“Is there any other way to start the day … well coffee maybe. It was a sad day when there were no new Larson cartoons. At least there’s still coffee.”
She ignored the discomfort of the shirt and the life jacket and watched the slow, fluid movements he made as the sampan moved into the centre of the river.
“So you’re travelling alone?” he asked, pulling the pole out of the water and letting the boat coast.
She looked up from watching the detritus speed by: plastic bottles, palms fronds, tangled netting, islands of filthy froth.
“Mid-life crisis,” she said, and felt her cheeks burn, grateful the darkness hid them. “Oh shit, I can’t believe I just said that.”
“People confess all kinds of stuff out here.” He picked up the pole and started to guide the boat toward the opposite bank.
Leah reached out and let her fingers skim across the river, mirroring the clouds brushing by the sickle moon overhead.
“So no young lover or sports car then.”
Leah snorted. “I’d be happy to just have a lover.” She lay back as best as she could in the life jacket and watched the stars pass overhead. “I leased my apartment and quit my job to be landless for a year. Everyone said I was mad, but they’d all already done the backpacker thing while I was busy studying and climbing the corporate ladder. Now they’re all busy having babies. Losing their freedom, not going back to reclaim it.”
“Sounds like you’ve come to find yourself,”
“God you’re making it sound like Eat, Pray, Love on a Lonely Planet budget.”
“Eat. Pray. Love. Sounds good to me!”
“It’s a book.” When he didn’t say anything she continued. “Middle-class chick with a poor-me complex gets her publishing house to pay for her to travel through Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself. In the end she just finds a guy.”
“Are you always this cynical?”
“On good days.”
“I just meant life is full of options and perhaps, excluding prayer, the other two are pretty reasonable ways to wind down the clock. Works for me.”
She tucked her arms under her head and asked, “So what do you do? Other than take tourists down the river and dispense gems of real life philosophy. I didn’t expect to come to Kuala Selangor and be shown the fireflies by an Aussie.”
“I was doing research and discovered the facility that head hunted me for my innovation only wanted me to innovate their way. Only push the boundaries they said were okay to push. Publish only what they said was okay to publish.”
“What were you researching?”
“Brain waves. I discovered new low-level cycles that I called omega waves. But no one liked t
he idea that people declared brain dead still had cerebral activity.” His face hardened. “No one wanted that moral and ethical can of worms opened, so the university terminated my tenure and discredited my work.”
“That’s a bit rough isn’t it?”
“Add every swear word you know and you’re starting to get my frame of mind before I got here.”
He threw his weight into the pole, his body relaxing into the familiar motion.
“What brought you here?”
“It’s more what brought me back here.”
“What brought you here the first time?”
“The old man’s an Entomologist. Mum taught English. I grew up just down there, before they packed me off to boarding school in Sydney when I hit high school.” He pointed into the darkness and Leah tried to pinpoint a building. All she could see was more jungle. “That was when Kampung Kuantan was an even tinier village and fireflies were only interesting to people like Dad.”
The boat shifted, rocking side to side. She took her hand out of the water, dried it on the bottom of the borrowed shirt and lay on her side to watch him manoeuvre the sampan into the slow-moving water closest to the bank.
“Ever seen a firefly?”
“What do the locals call them?”
“Kelip-kelip. Means ‘to twinkle’.”
“No. I’ve never seen kelip-kelip, but I saw glow-worms in a cave on school camp in Year Nine.”
“You’re in for a treat then.”
They floated around a gentle bend and the river opened up before them.
“Oh my God,” Leah whispered, pulling herself up and staring down river in awe of the luminous green pinpoints, blinking messages of love, lighting up entire branches. “They’re like … fairy lights. But more … spectacular for being part of nature. More … I can’t describe it. It’s like I’ve died and gone to the most beautiful place in all the universe.”
“I thought they were fairies until Dad let me look at one up close. Butt-ugly fairies let me tell you.”
They floated beneath overhanging branches, the limbs lighting up as they silently slid past.
One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries Page 7