Cracked Pots: A Novel

Dedication

For my sister, Susanne Rayner, the gold filling the cracks in this world.

One

The train slows. Mechanical wizardry, air and friction working together, is bringing this massive locomotive to a precise stop. Mikey tells me this. At eight years old, he loves the physics involved. Me? I just wonder how I’ll move my one hundred and twenty-six pounds of cells through the warped space and time ahead.

I know where I am without clearing the window; still, I wipe away the condensation. The familiar landmark comes into view. When I was eight, JOHN 3:16 was painted in big letters on the barn’s roof. Now, at sixteen, just rusty holes and a faint OH 6 remain. My Oh shit point on each journey back to Toronto. It’s here when I feel most stretched in two, pulled east, back to my aunts, to clay, to Jake—and forced west, to chaos, to waste, to—

Aaron.

Bloody hell, Jasper, don’t start stirring this up again.

Outside, a girl races the train, hair flying like a charm of finches. Her hand lifts and—pop-pop-poppity-pop!

Mikey’s head snaps from the pillow. What’s that?

Just a kid throwing firecrackers.

Where are we?

Eight hundred miles and four long months from Cape Breton. Quebec.

The passenger car is hot as soup. Mikey tucks up, stretching a worn undershirt over summer-scraped legs. He studies my swollen cheek. Does it hurt?

Really bad.

I heard Missus Butters tell Huey that the rockslide was an omen.

Neck hairs startle up with the draft from doors opening. You know the Missus is the Cove’s tall tale spinner. She’s always telling shivery stories. It was just the heavy rains and growing roots that caused it.

He scratches at a mosquito bite on his ankle. Maybe so. Just seems off when water breaks rock. And, and . . . there was all that other stuff.

William, the train’s steward, directs a roly-poly man our way. Well, little miss, look what I’ve found. I’m years, and inches, past being little, but through all my rides, I can’t recall a trip where William hasn’t taken care of me.

The man is a doctor, conscripted from somewhere on the train. He plunks down, eyeing my cheek with half spectacles. Good gracious. What happened here?

Mikey says, A rock dinged her.

Now, who’d throw stones at such a pretty girl? He opens his bag. When’d this happen?

Friday.

Eyes open. Eyes closed. I see it. Birds rocketing from the ridge seconds before the sonic crack. Then a boulder, big as a bus, ripping away, cartwheeling into the ocean. Water, red with dirt, pluming. Rocks, stones, pebbles cascading, trickling, then—dead quiet. In the settling dust, I looked up. The path to the acres we named Moondance, gone. By a root, a young cedar swung like an acrobat. Atop the ridge, Jake stood, peering down, looking as terrified as me.

Weeks before, same night as men walked on the moon, Jake and I went all the way. Sleeping with a boy was still cosmic with newness, and there I was, in the rubble, sensing in three days, two nights, one morning, I’d be launched away.

Now, on the train heading further into Jakeless space, Mikey quavers, like the words are haunted. And you know what?

What, son?

Our dog snatched Ari’s shoe. Spinner ran circles before giving it back. Then, Ari met Huey walking a cranky foster. She took the baby so Huey could go off and take a pee and wouldn’t you know it, a bear was blocking the path back. If not for all the holdups, Ari would’ve been right where it happened.

So, instead, she caught a bit of shrapnel?

Yes. I bury a scream as the doctor digs.

Quite the whale tale.

It is. The kind of yarn that will become a down-home legend, a ballad even. Mikey shrugs. Maybe, but it’s not a lie.

Here’s the trouble. A granite shard, smaller than the tip of an eyelash, is in his tweezers. Disinfecting stings, but the agony is gone—poof. He gives me a tiny tube. Dab of this and it should settle right down.

William leans over the plush seat. Imagine that: a beagle, a babe, and a bear kept you from being squashed. There’s big magic in that.

You see good ahead, William?

Truth?

I lengthen my spine. Give it to me straight.

Dark roads to come. Into a small leather pouch, William drops ten pennies, then tosses it to me. But fret not, ’cause one by one, I’ll collect these and when the last coin drops, you’ll be home.

In the Cove, right?

On my whiskers, day’ll come when this walrus and your seahorse will dance along that shore, and you’ll know that it’s your own solid legs that carried you there.

Mikey asks, Me too, William?

Sure as sure. But I suspect you’ll travel back on a wing, laddie. He tips his hat and moves along.

Across the aisle, a lady, sleek as an eel, tucks her skirt away from the disruption that always surrounds me.

Mikey asks, Hey, how’d William know Spinner’s a beagle?

Aunties M&N say he’s got second sight.

Because he’s walrus kin?

It’s as good an answer as any.

That doctor was a penguin.

Right. My cheek does feel cooler.

If I died, would my dragonfly die too?

Yeah, Kira would be gone, gone, gone. Inner animals are like those cleaner fish who live because other creatures need someone to eat their fungus.

They’re symbolic.

Symbiotic.

If I died, you could stay in Pleasant Cove.

Nah. The Dick would just go after my sisters to force me back.

You’re just saying that so I don’t feel like the worm that hooked you.

Mikey is indeed the millstone dragging me back, but he’s guilt-weighted enough without me adding to it. Think about it, bro. When you go fishing with Jake, does the bait have any say in what happens? I pat down his sea-urchin hair. The Dick’s not letting me off his hook before all Len’s money comes to me. Why’d you think he got hitched to my mum this summer? Mikey’s dad, Richard Irwin, aka the Dick, is husband number three, giving me an Oreo of dads, two complete shits, with soft, sweet Len Zajac in the middle. If Len had known the trouble his money would cause me, he’d have burned every dollar. Um, while we’re talking Dickshit, think we better keep this whole animal friend thing hush-hush.

So he can’t comet you to the loony bin?

Commit. Yeah. And maybe keep under wraps that the Missus taught you to knit.

Jacques Plante’s a knitter and a goalie.

The Dick thinks Plante’s a sissy for wearing a mask.

I hate hockey.

What Mikey hates is the boozy fury when the home team loses. Worry less, bro. We’ll come up with a lie that gets us out of crapdom on game nights.

How come those Commandments say we shouldn’t lie?

Because Moses never walked through our wilderness. Just imagine life in Toronto without Sabina helping us.

It’d be awful, but why even think it?

Lies got Len and his family out of Poland. Sabina was the best liar in the resistance, helped the good guys win the war. It’s just story-weaving and we’re going to spin one that gets us out of crapdom for good.

If Pops died, we could both live in Pleasant Cove.

We’ll get back. Jasper says so.

Has Jasper always been with you?

Since the moment Huey and Jake found me bundled on the shore.

Is he really real or pretend?

All I know is Jasper gets me started and stopped like the magic that gets this train where it’s supposed to be.

I never told anyone about my dragonfly, not ’til you. Mikey blots a bead of blood from my cheek before dabbing on a pearl of ointment. How come everyone doesn’t have a talking animal?

They do. Most just stop listening.

Mikey offers me his pillow and starts a round of our favourite game, Death to Dick by Alphabet. He singsongs, Arsenic applesauce. Bowling ball bomb. Cyanide cookies. Dynamite doughnuts. Electric eels. Fire-ant fog . . . Here’s a new one, ground-glass gingersnaps.

With our luck he’d just shit chandeliers and clog the toilet. There’s pulsing under me as the train picks up speed, like Celtic drums. I relax into it, closing my eyes to eel lady’s disapproval of Mikey in raggedy hand-me-downs, plotting murder, and of me in quote-scribbled jeans, talking crazy.

Hemlock hamburgers. Icepick injections. Killer kangaroos.

The window’s frame creates snapshots as the train pulls into Union Station. Aaron West. Expected. Mr. Ellis. Unexpected. Officer O’Toole. Disturbing. Mikey looks from the platform to me. Maybe Pops was in a shootout slaughter. It’s the most hopeful he’s sounded since leaving Pleasant Cove.

I stuff down fear and pick up our gear: Mikey’s small duffle, my carryall, and the sixteen years of Appleton baggage that weights me everywhere.

Before my foot leaves the step, O’Toole snags my arm and my summer of peace and love dissolves.

Two

Without a hello, Aaron untethers Mikey’s hand from mine. In a funeral hush, he says, Come with me, buddy.

Inhale knots with exhale as I ready for news of an Appleton apocalypse.

Mr. Ellis, frantic, desperate, asks, Ari, have you heard anything from Natasha Koshkin?

Natasha? From school? No. Why?

She’s missing.

No way.

You hear from her this summer?

Um, couple of letters.

Anything concerning in them?

No.

Shit. Shit. Mr. Ellis is my teacher, mentor, and the most grounded person I know. Right now, he resembles a turtle flipped feet up. Okay. I’m heading back to the Koshkin’s. Police want you at the station.

O’Toole manhandles me to a cruiser. He opens the front door, seizing my braid as I make for the back. Sit where you’re told.

Fuzz off.

Get uppity with me and I’ll have you over the hood.

O’Toole is the Dick’s best bud. Never have I met anyone more enamoured with his penis, and I’ve known a few. You want me to tell the Chief there’s a mole in his ranks and how I happen to know it’s on your pecker?

He surrenders. Drives me to headquarters.

The Dick is manning the front desk. Sleeves rolled up. Phone held to his ear by his jowly cheek. With a finger flick he commands me over. Listen up. This has the ears of the top brass. It’s my ticket to detective. He sucks pastrami from his teeth. Don’t you go messing this up for me.

Welcome home, Hariet.

The station is jittery. I’m not surprised to see Ellis’s other half, my art teacher, Mina Burn, helping. She sidesteps desks to reach me. Ari, can you believe this?

No. What happened?

Natasha’s family went to the Ex on Friday. She asked to take in the midway with friends. Promised her dad she’d meet them at the Shell Tower at four, but never showed.

Natasha never messes up.

No, she doesn’t. They’ve questioned everyone. No one had plans with her.

Why am I here?

We’ve been going over her diaries. You—she hushes into my ear—and Jasper are mentioned a lot. They’ll ask. Imagine up a plausible explanation.

In Pleasant Cove, I’m Ari, clay-conjuring, fey girl, whispering to sea spirits. In Toronto, I’m crazy Hariet, talking to the voices in her head.

Miss Appleton. A man in a rumpled suit lifts a folder, waves me to a room, eyes narrowing at my inflamed cheek. You been in a fight?

No, sir. Just a mishap.

Hmph. I’m Detective Halpern. Sit. The walls are the concentrated-urine colour of the unflushed toilet on the train. Smudges and bits of tape remain where papers have been ripped away. So, where’s it you’ve been?

Nova Scotia. I spend summers with my aunts, making pottery.

Rough work?

My hands are a wreck: chapped skin and fresh nicks layer over scars, from years of war—with fosters, with Mum, with myself. Wood carving. Chisels are tricky.

He leans across the table. Palms flat. Eyes fixed. Level with me here. She just running?

I meet his gaze. No way. Not Natasha.

Drugs?

Never.

He lights a cigarette. You tellin’ me there’s a kid coming out of the sixties without testing the waters?

Wasn’t her thing.

Is it yours?

My head shake is more a wobble than definitive.

Tell me about your friendship.

Walked together after school to collect our brothers. Shared books. We’d hang at my aunt’s boutique making stuff while our brothers played.

Stuff?

Tie-dye, purses, junk like that.

She date?

Don’t think she was allowed.

Crushes?

Ringo. Elvis. Micky Dolenz.

Who?

Drummer for the Monkees.

He peruses a coffee-ringed file. In her diary she mentions someone named Chase?

He’s my friend, from my old school. He and Nat were on the mayor’s youth council.

You know where we can reach him?

California. He got a scholarship to UCLA.

How about an Aaron West?

Natasha mentioned him?

He reads from a red leather journal, tiny key suspended from a chain. Aaron West is dreamier than Brando.

Natasha met him at a student art show. He came to see my painting.

And you know him how?

I weigh the depth and width of the truth and give the top inch. He was my teacher in grade eight. I had this, um, family thing and couldn’t keep my dog, so his parents took him for me. Mr. West is one of those Big Brother guys for my stepbrother, Mikey.

You’re Irwin’s kid, aren’t you?

My mum’s been with him a few years.

Mike’s his kid, no? What’s he needing a Big Brother for?

Shadows, real and imagined, move on the flip side of the mirror. He helps because Mikey’s mom’s messed up. Natasha only met Aaron the one time.

Sure about that? I’d say she had a major crush.

Pretty sure. Besides, he was in Kenya all summer.

And do you have a boyfriend?

Yes.

This Jasper?

Ah, no, Jake.

The fiddler?

Yes. How—?

Mentions him too.

Did Nat write she wanted someone like Jasper?

Something like.

It’s not about a boy.

What then?

Um, well, she asked how I could draw like I do. We were studying the Greek muses in history. I said I had a muse named Jasper. She wished she had one too.

He’s not a real person?

Just the name I give to my imagination.

I feel a kick. Just. Just?

Shut it.

So, are all these J’s pretend?

All?

His eyes slide up, then back to an entry. "I’d give anything to be Ari. With all the J’s, it’s like she’s living Little Women for real. That anyone, for a second, would want my crap-full life leaves me mute. Well?"

Um, I have five sisters: Jennah, June, Jacquie, Jory, and Jillianne. Nat just thought having sisters would be nice.

And you’re . . . Harriet?

Yeah. I sigh. And misspelled with just one R.

Tell me, would ya, why all these crushes on boys connected with you? He blows smoke over my head. And why’s your name coming up with every person I question? ‘Ask Hariet.’ ‘Ari might know something.’ ‘Have you talked to that Appleton girl?’ Huh?

Because I’m trouble, from trouble. Don’t know. We weren’t that close.

Come on. Your name’s on every other page of her diary.

She thought my life was, I don’t know, interesting.

And hers was a bore?

No, sir. Ordered.

Would she have gone for a walk on the wild side?

Can’t picture Natasha stepping outside the lines, ever.

So, good girl. No drugs. No boys. Nothin’. He paces like a penned lion. You know anything about a guy she met in High Park?

She mentioned him in a letter. Bobbie something.

Story. Bobbie Story. Know where we can find him?

No idea.

Gimme something here. His gimme has a punch.

Um, Nat wrote he was dreamier than Troy Donahue. She compared people to stars. So maybe sandy hair and gray eyes?

Would she just talk to some strange guy?

She’d talk to anyone, especially if it was about a book.

Not following.

He asked if she wanted to go to Arrakis. It’s from the book she was reading. She’d dig that.

What book?

"Dune."

Mina knocks and opens the door. Sandwich cart’s here. What can I get you?

Corned beef.

Mina asks, Ari?

Where’s Mikey?

Aaron took him to Sabina’s.

Can you call and see how he is? And tell her I need a few dozen peanut butter sandwiches, heavy on the jam.

Will do.

Halpern leans against the mirror. Explain.

Mikey’s best buds with Nat’s brother. He’ll be worried.

No, what’s with the picnic?

When we finish here, I’ll go to the Village. Kids hanging in doorways hear things. Food’s currency.

We’ve combed every inch of Yorkville.

No offence, sir, but cops would have better luck combing a Rastafarian’s hair than the Village.

And you’ll have luck because . . . ?

I wait tables at the Riverboat and my sister runs the outreach at the church. People know us.

Mina arrives with sandwiches and Halpern asks, You teach art, right?

Yes.

Sketch guy’s on holiday. You think you could give me something that’d look more like she did on Friday than her school pic?

Ari could, better than me.

That right?

I could try.

Right then. He flips his notebook closed. Things arranged for tomorrow’s search?

Mina says, Staff are at your disposal. Busses will be at the ready.

I’ll have uniforms at the school by eight to brief everyone.

I loaned her that book.

What’s that, kid?

"Dune. The book she was reading. Burnt coffee collides with the smoke-clogged air. I ask Mina, Did you talk to Sabina?"

Mikey can stay as long as needed and her kitchen’s mobilized.

Halpern says, Leave it ’til morning.

No disrespect, sir, but only thing standing in the Village in the morning are the lamp posts.

Mina says, Ellis is picking up the sandwiches. We’ll go along.

Anything else you can think of, Ari? he asks.

She collected buttons.

Buttons?

I sigh. Sewing buttons. She liked them because they held things together.

Three

Yorkville is worn out. Dropped-out humanity clusters on steps and doorways. They talk to us for the food, a few because they remember Mina and Ellis as teachers who gave a shit. Or maybe they warm to us because they’re a little hopeful that somebody is looking for someone.

We run out of sandwiches without a crumb in return. Ellis asks, Where to? Sabina’s?

Let’s try the drop-in.

The church is crammed with tripped-out kids. My sister Jory hops, steps, and jigs over bodies when she sees me. She’s prettier than that model, Twiggy. More ink has been added over the summer, but mercifully the butterfly around her eye remains the only tattoo on her face. She snaps me into a hug. Cheese ’n’ Christ on a cracker, look who’s back.

Sister number four is as substantial as a licorice rope, but here in the Village, she’s Jory of Arc, fighting the Sixties War. I hold tight and ask, You hear anything about the girl that went missing from the Ex?

Just trash.

Like what?

Ah . . . her dad’s a Russian spy and she’s being held ’til he gives up secrets.

But Mr. Koshkin makes candy.

"These kids don’t know where they are let alone anyone else. Come on. Best thing we can do is get the elders praying."

Um, I’ll leave you to get God in the loop. You know where Edjo might be hanging?

Mynah Bird, maybe?

I lighten my pocket of travelling cash, knowing Jory will turn it into bread for her flock and maybe a little holy smoke for herself.

She stuffs it in her jeans. Rock it for Jesus, sis.

We descend, stepping over wasted souls on the stairs. I love my sister, but the God stuff makes my teeth scratch.

Mina says, Well then, Aaron’s new friend’s going to give you hives.

What? A girlfriend?

Nurse he met in Kenya. Very, um, zealous.

She came back with him? Like with him, with him? I shouldn’t care, not when I love Jake, but Aaron is . . . What is he, Jasper?

Our ocean when we’re stuck in Toronto.

She’s finishing her degree at U of T.

Ellis says, She’s a real Mother Teresa.

You forgetting I have a mother Theresa? No prize there.

The street is electric. I follow the current toward a tangle of Harleys and spot the leader of the pack. Edjo reeks of weed, leather, and fried chicken as he mauls me in a hug. Ari-mi-amigo, where you been?

Paradise.

You find that sister of yours?

Only in my dreams. Listen, the girl that went missing from the CNE. You hear anything?

Nada. He pulls hard on a joint. You know her?

Yeah. From school.

I’ll ask around.

Appreciated. I inhale his exhale before returning to Ellis.

Ari, how is it you’re cozy with a Vagabond?

He and June had a thing back in the day. She’s like a melanoma. Once she’s under your skin, you can’t shake her.

Ellis’s hand lands soft on my shoulder. How long’s it been?

Five years. June may’ve disappeared but at least she left clues. How could someone like Natasha vanish without cosmic trumpets sounding?

There were a couple of sightings on the midway, but that’s it.

The last night of the summer of ’69 has the Village jumping with freshmen and bikers, greasers and junk-sick runaways. Where have all the flower children gone, Jasper?

Mina says, There’s always chatter at the Riverboat.

I measure the line snaking up the stairs of the coffee house. Let’s go around back.

When I open the door, Crystal has a tray on her left hand, three mugs looped in the fingers of her right, sweat soaking her blouse, and a told-you-so smile. Ha. Knew you wouldn’t let Mikey come back alone. Now, help, please. I’m on my own here. We’re outta glasses. Get to it. Plate up the strudel and keep it coming.

I tie back my storm of hair. Rummage through my inventory of tie-dye in the storage room and find a clean tank.

Wobbly legged, tray loaded with water, I enter the packed house, thick with smoke, music—and life. The tray empties before making it down a single row. A regular says, Hey, Ari. Nice headlights.

My boobs are a B-minus at best, but they always plump a little after a summer of hearty East Coast fare. Charming as ever, Lewis. I drape my cleavage with a red-checked towel before bending over. You hear anything about the girl who went missing?

Zilch. She’s from your school, eh?

Yeah. Same grade as me.

Put them boots up as a reward and I’ll find something to deliver.

I’m wearing Len’s steel-toed work boots, now painted with the finesse of a Dutch master and the funk of Kandinsky. They fit in a relative way, my feet are proportionate to my length, which is to say, significant. And Len’s feet were small in proportion to his goodness. It’s astonishing really that his feet were able to support his kindness. Lewis, you find some intel and I’ll paint anything you want.

Anything?

Yep. Just know I use a hot needle to etch in the design.

A preppy guy in the adjoining booth says. Excuse me. Ari, is it?

Not yet, but I’m working on it.

Pardon?

Lewis says, The name Ari. She’s growing into it. She’s a bit . . . Finger circles temple, indicating my lunacy. Dad’s a pig.

The preppy asks, He’s a cop?

Lewis oinks as the guy reads my face, line by undefined line, zeroing in on my fat cheek. Do I know you from somewhere, Almost-Ari?

I’m unthinkable, therefore unknowable.

Intriguing. Could I trouble you for another coffee?

When I return to the kitchen, Mina says, You’re looking a little chartreuse. Sit. I’ll water the herd.

I nab a stool and take over slapping sandwiches together. Crystal flies in, barking, Three ham, two salami, six cheese.

The guy behind Lewis ordered a coffee.

Crystal hoists up a loaded tray. Good luck to him.

Hours pass. The crowd ebbs and swells. I’m up to my elbows in soapy water, asleep on my feet, dreaming about the nest, my attic escape, just a hop, skip, and climb down the alley. There, I’ll find silence, a featherbed, the plush dog Aaron gave me . . . I sense a shadow in the doorway. I blink, trying to place the man in a fedora. Detective Halpern?

Just checking in. Anything?

Just crap like her dad’s a spy.

Heard that one. Your teachers go?

Yeah. They needed sleep.

Let’s go. I’m seeing you home.

No. I’ll just crash here.

I’m not losing another kid. Not on my watch.

But there’re hours ’til closing.

You weren’t scheduled to work in the first place and that sketch is priority one. Move it.

As I’m escorted out, music and conversations hush, draft dodgers turn to the walls, ragers against the establishment raise a glass.

Halpern drives me to crapdom and pulls in behind the Dick’s sedan, waiting as I walk the plank.

What kind of shit detective delivers a kid to the most perilous place on Earth?

Who could imagine life behind these walls, Jasper?

A hip thrust opens the peeling door. Smoke and rotting lives hit like a beached tuna nine days dead. To my left, TV light fluoresces off two months of unfolded laundry mounded on the sofa. Odds are O’Toole is snoring under the pile. Rod Serling says, "A frightening tale for the more imaginative among us, next week on The Twilight Zone." The tinny do-do-do-do–do-do-do-do of the closing credits creeps through the dark house.

Let’s just split.

The Missus says to march straight at the hardest thing to be done and box it square on d’ears.

Christ, you’re annoying. I can’t face locating Mum in this cesspit, so I head to the second hardest, a kitchen left in the hands of grievously inept humans. My boots fight against the sticky linoleum. Light averse creatures dive for cover when I flip the switch. Hoooly shit. The counter is a heaped jumble of crusted dishes, bottles, wrappers, half-empty tins. I poke at a plaid slipper atop a plate. What the . . . ?

That skat is from a—

Mouse. A really big mouse. I hear a creak on the steps. Waking the Dick is as risky as stepping on a grizzly’s ingrown toenail. I turn, praying he’ll have on underwear, boxers, not tighties. Todd?

Alls I can say is thanks bejesus it’s you and not a rat.

A summer in the company of socialized humans has Mikey’s brother Todd in PJ pants and a T-shirt. He’s still a mountain of an eighteen-year-old, but it’s solid heft. Thought you were in Rockton.

Job’s done for now. His face forever holds the expectation of a hopeful infant. Figured Mikey might need me. Where’d you stash him?

Sabina’s.

Good plan. Ease him back into this shit hole.

Dick Irwin has four offspring. From his first wife: Ricky, the soldier boy. I once loved him like any fourteen-year-old would fall for the knight who takes a punch for her. And Ronnie, aka Devil Girl. Then there’s Todd, from another mother and same age as Ronnie (let it be said again, the Dick is a big dick). And eight-year-old Mikey, son of flighty, drug-stuck Laura.

When I first arrived in crapdom, Todd was set to become the fabric that covered the chair in front of the TV. Now he’s a veterinary assistant and what he lacks in appearance he makes up for in chivalry.

He says, You believe this mess? Don’t know where to start.

Bleach. Barrels of bleach.

Not gonna help this. He opens the door to the back porch and flicks on the light. Two months of putrefying garbage surpasses the windowsills.

Oh . . . help me, Rhonda.

Gotta clean this out ASAP. He tilts a box with a broomstick, uncovering a rat the size of the Dick’s boot, belly up, legs stiff, whiskers singed. Likely electrocuted itself.

Good news is it’s dead?

You can be damn sure it has family.

We can’t bring Mikey back here.

Ah, he’s an Irwin. He’s tougher than he looks.

I’m not worried about his mettle. He’ll just drive us squirrelly insisting on a funeral for every creature we execute.

It’s two a.m. before the Everest of dishes is down to several molehills and five crusted pots. Todd says, Let’s leave these to soak.

You working tomorrow?

No. I was gonna help with the search. He steps on a bag, detonating the reek of rotten banana. But this needs sorting before the place goes up in flames.

We nimble-foot over junk piled in the hallway and crap littering the stairs. Why didn’t you stay in Rockton, really?

Honestly? Couldn’t see Mikey here on his own and never in a million years did I think you’d be stupid enough to come back. A whiff of summer sneakers escapes as he opens the door to the boys’ room.

Can you get your room ready for him? I ask.

Washer’s broken.

Figures.

I could haul a load to the laundromat in the wagon.

That’d take a month of Sundays. I’ll ask Aaron for loan of his jeep.

I head to the bathroom and there is Mum, duchess of crapdom, slumped against the throne. When I left eight weeks ago, she was puking in the toilet. Now she has the frayed pink bathmat bunched under her head, an oozy cold sore on the corner of her mouth, and—alas, a pulse in her neck.

I wipe the seat and pee. Usually I can pinpoint what magic carpet has her flying. When stoned, she’s easy. Angry when piss-drunk. Jittery on uppers. Messy on downers, and sick, sick, sick when she mixes the shit. It’s hard to reconcile the once fierce, razor-witted woman with this deflated pile of skin.

Her eyes roll open. Jilli?

No. It’s Ari.

Oh, Elsie, I have the fuel. The few. Th-th-the flu.

She’s paper-light to hoist up. Come get to bed.

Their room smells like farts and looks like a Goodwill dumpster. The Dick graces the bed, gape-mouthed, stained undershirt, tighty-whities splayed. As I load Mum in, the Dick rolls over and sort of loves her up. The treasure here? Knowing what I could become if I don’t pay attention.

When trapped in crapdom, I’m forced to sleep in a corner of Devil Girl’s satanic cave. Ronnie is starkers, leg hanging over the edge of her bed like an albino python. Some pimply faced boy is passed out on my cot.

Backing out, I spear my foot on one of her pitchfork earrings, collapsing back onto debris. Does no one in this bloody house ever pick up their shit!

The boy on my cot belches, the sulphury stink hits like a bomb.

Ronnie lifts her head. Hey, bitchface. You’re back.

Yeah, let the good times roll.

Hey, you hear about that Natasha chick?

Some. What’s the street buzz?

Scuttle is them sideshow freaks at the Ex snatched her. That monkey boy gives me the heebie-jeebies. She returns to the pillow like a stoned sloth.

A train ride away, there is a windowed room in a stone cottage. Sea treasures, books, and photos line the shelves. My pillows smell of lavender and the sheets of a summer clothesline. I close the door and head down to my only sanctuary here, Mikey’s fort in the mouldy cellar. It’s a metal shipping container, six feet long, four feet high, and three wide. There’s an air mattress on the bottom and a flashlight on a hook. A treasured Zajac featherbed explodes like an over-ready dandelion as I rip it from its plastic cocoon. I spread the comforter under and pull it over me knowing that where I am is safer and warmer than wherever Natasha is.

Can a house fall like a rock cliff, Jasper?

Rats chewing wires could do it.

Ashes, ashes, let it all fall down.

Four

The fort has a delicious way of warming. I stretch like a contented pup, soaking in the quiet as light fans through the mesh vents. My eyes stay closed, remembering Jake’s muscled goodness, long and naked, beside me.

Police sketch. Borrow jeep. Laundry. Groceries. Rat traps. Disinfect crapdom. Check on Mikey. School?

For frig’s sake. Can you not give me ten minutes?

Don’t say I didn’t warn you when the Dick has you clipping toenails he hasn’t been able to reach for two months.

Without risking a pee, I’m out the door, running the twelve blocks to the Village. I zip down the alley, take the zigzag of steps two at a time, unlock the deadbolt, and skit into my attic nest. The air is stale with summer heat, cinnamon, linseed oil, and weed. I crack the windows and a hint of autumn floats in. Sister number three, Jacquie, owns the building. She made this hiding place for me before escaping to Poland. In the chaos of my world, it is Nirvana—divine ground, bliss. I collapse into my feathery chair and survey the totems suspended in the window. Tell me we’re not adding another absence to our collection, Jasper.

Only silence. Not even a squeak from the floors beneath or the street outside.

I resist the lure of sleep, and shower. The pipes cough, sputter, water running rust, orange, peach, then clear. Aunt Mary’s detangling shampoo smells of Pleasant Cove berries and strips the cigarette stench from my hair.

Len’s old flannel shirt hangs on the back of the door. His scent has long been washed out, but the remembrance of his arm on my shoulder remains as I slip it on. The nest is always well stocked with non-perishables. Something Len’s cousin Sabina learned in the war. I lighten my tea with powdered milk; fill a plate with nuts, seeds, and sugary oat bars; tuck on my chair; and start the sketch.

Maybe she fell in the water.

When did Natasha ever step near the edge?

Sometimes we don’t see the edge.

Or it just breaks away.

My pencil blends her school picture with the last seen description: chestnut hair ponytailed, not quaffed like this photo. Pedal pushers, tie-dyed tank, fringed bag. From her painted Keds to the beaded thong securing her ponytail, she’s branded by Ari art. Crap, Jasper, you think this rotten Appleton tainted her?

Doing crafts can’t spoil anything. Besides, you’re not that important. If you went missing, they’d just wonder what took so long.

Yeah. I rummage through my pencil crayons.

Xerox it before you colour it.

See, that’s why I talk to you. Seahorses have a practicality about them that the Almighty patently lacks.

I tie up Len’s boots and step into the day. Tap your heels three times and remember you’re the wizard behind your destiny.

Deep, Jasper.

While Jarvis CI’s student body searches the lakeshore, Mina and I tuck-up to a makeshift worktable