Read Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking for Free Online Page B

a way to do it but this was my first time so it was
hard going. I had to rest. That’s when I saw him. He appeared at
the edge of the cliff above me, looked down, straight at me. I
waved hello. He turned and disappeared up the path.
    That was 1156 days ago. We’re
settled here now. Despite all that’s happened, despite Assassin,
despite White Sox whom I’m really going to miss, this is where
we’re staying.
     
     

 
    15
     
     
    In the morning, we go about our
usual. Chris goes out fishing and Lilian does a spot of housework.
She folds laundry in the living room, watching morning television.
It’s Sunday so it’s just me and Starling for the day. I take
Starling out in the front yard to pick up some pebbles. She likes
to count them. I notice the front door has been cleaned. It’s so
clean it shines, especially around the spot where the arrow went
into the wood. It’s been filled in and sanded to blend in with the
grain so you don’t see where it went in. But I know it was there.
Holding up White Sox by the throat. Poor kitty. It feels nothing
now, at the bottom of the garbage bin.
    ‘Sarah? Sarah-honey, have you
seen Starling’s pink dress?’ Lilian pokes her head out of the
window.
    I haven’t. I shake my head,
shrug. Then Starling looks up from her pebbles.
    ‘Pink. I want pink dress.’
    But she’s talking to herself.
Lilian’s gone. She made her puzzled grimace and pulled her head
back in. She’ll go look in the laundry basket again. I know she
will. She’s been doing that all week, we all have. Looked in all
the usual nooks and crannies but the dress is nowhere to be found.
Maybe it’s time to give up and get a new one, I tell Lilian but
she’s determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. She’s joking
about it but I can see she’s holding out hope the thing will
surface, somehow. And perhaps it will. In its own good time.
    Later, Starling falls asleep in
the tent we made in the back yard. I draped a blanket over the
picnic table and Starling dragged couch cushions under it. Now
she’s sleeping in her nest, with a thumb in her mouth, clutching
Sleepy Bear swaddled like a baby, in her sleeping bag. I lie next
to her, thinking, about my dream. Fairy came to see me last night.
She put her little girl down on the floor next to a big box full of
beautiful glass things. She took one out. Look, Emily-darling, this one’s yours. It was a bird. Made of
sugar. Emily was excited; she clapped her hands. She wanted to hold
the bird but Fairy hung it on the fir tree. It looked lovely. It
came to life and made a noise. It stepped on a twig and broke
it.
    I woke up to see the back of
Lilian disappearing down the path. I knew immediately that
something wasn’t right. She never goes to the beach. So she’s going
over to see old Drake. This can’t be a good thing. Lilian’s upset.
And she’s not strong. So I’m gonna have to get involved.
    At old Drake’s, everything’s
quiet. It’s easy to sneak up to the house without Assassin there.
Physically, that is. He’s definitely here in spirit. In his grave,
rising from the puckered ground under the weeping willow like a
great big pustule. RIP Assassin. It was a good idea to honour him
with a resting place. Respectful. And that’s what we should have
done with White Sox. We should have put White Sox in a box in the
ground under a tree. RIP White Sox. But that sort of thinking takes
imagination and Chris is not a chip off the old block at all. No
respect for the dead, has he?
    The front door squeaked. I dove
into the tall grass where she wouldn’t see me. Turned out I didn’t
have to worry. She wouldn’t have seen me if I had stood in the
doorway. She flew out of the cabin like Fairy, clutching a bunch of
photographs close to her chest, and she ran down the path towards
the beach. Oh, Lilian. What are you going to do about anything?
    Well, of course, she’ll tell me
later. I really should have just gone home right then but it wasn’t
meant to be. She