They put their shoes back on and walk for a long time, single file, between the furrows, feet growing heavy with mud, Rex in front, the lope of his hindquarters, his reassuring fur shining in the sun. They don’t speak. The cornfield becomes the meadow.
Oh it is Tuesday, bright and sunny, but inside Madeleine’s stomach it is chilly. Everything is so quiet, school-day quiet. Look for something pink and gleaming in last year’s fallen-down grass, or draped perhaps across a sticky milkweed pod or bulrush — furry brown spike bursting fluff. Maybe they will see it blowing across the tops of the lacy stinkweeds that are scattered like dropped napkins across the meadow — the entire countryside is a tablecloth laid for a banquet — or down among the dull burrs snagging their ankle socks — something winking back the sun, that will be her streamer. We have to find it because it was hers. And it is still out there, all alone. Keep walking. Rex knows the way.
He zigzags out in front, looking over his shoulder from time to time, stopping, letting them go ahead for a while. He is herding them. The lily of the valley release their scent, crushed underfoot in the new grass.
The ground becomes marshy. Up ahead, standing alone, announcing the woods, is a stately elm.
There, stop. Don’t step in. Stay at the edge. Like stumbling upon a pond, you don’t want to get a soaker. If this were a pond, you might see your own reflection and wonder if there was a tiny world down there looking back at you. But it’s not a pond, it’s a circular patch of tamped-down grass and weeds, as though someone had a picnic there. A spot the size of a puddle. Big enough for one to curl up in. That is where she lay. But already the tender grass is springing back. Soon there will be nothing to see. Around the edges, bluebells and dandelions have been plucked, the milk dried in their severed stems, their blossoms tossed among broken bulrushes. There is no sign of her pink streamer.
Madeleine says, “Maybe they’re going to bury her one streamer with her, or else keep it as a souvenir.”
When Madeleine is grown up, Claire will still be in a box in the ground. She will still be little, still in the same dress they buried her in. No matter what I am doing, no matter where I go, Claire will be there in that one spot.
“They can’t do that with evidence,” says Colleen.
Evidence. Imagine your bike, or your running shoe, or any old thing; one day it’s just your stuff lying around, and the next day it’s evidence. Police. Do Not Touch. Top Secret.
They search the area around the spot carefully without touching anything. They speak sparingly, in whispers. They walk lightly. This is a grave.
“We should have a funeral.”
“Yeah.”
Mike and Madeleine had a funeral for a fly once. They put it in a matchbox and prayed for it and Madeleine composed a poem, “Goodbye fly, the time is nigh. You flew too high, goodbye, good fly.” A poem is coming to her now, “Claire, you were fair, but it was no fair….” She can get no farther because all she can think to rhyme with it is “underwear.” “But where is your underwear, fair Claire?” Lost and gone forever.
“Her underpants were off,” says Colleen.
“How do you know?” asks Madeleine.
“I heard Mrs. Ridelle tell my ma.”
“That’s sick.”
“Yeah.”
They stand in silence, gazing down at the fading circle. Rex stands next to them. On guard.
“Maybe the murderer got her other streamer,” says Madeleine.
“She coulda just lost it.”
“No, she had it,” says Madeleine, “’cause remember? We saw when she was going to Rock Bass with Ricky and Elizabeth.”
“She wasn’t going with them.”
“I know, but I saw she had both of them then”—Madeleine looks back down—“and that was the day.” She moves to pluck a weed to chew, then stops herself, not wanting to chew or eat anything from around here.
“We were the last ones who saw her,” she says. Everyone in the world will have a last person who they see, who sees them. Who will mine be?
“No, Ricky and Elizabeth and Rex saw her after we did,” says Colleen.
“Oh yeah.”
“And someone else.” Colleen has taken out her knife but she doesn’t open it, or flip it and catch it, the way she usually does.
Madeleine says, “Who?” Colleen narrows her eyes and doesn’t answer, doesn’t look at Madeleine. Madeleine gets it: the murderer, that’s who.
She can hear grasshoppers fiddling, insects crawling up blades of grass. Sun burns the centre part in her hair. Nearby, the woods are dark and cool. Rex sniffs the edge of the tamped-down circle, but he doesn’t venture in either. Colleen reaches out and passes her hand over it. “To feel if it’s still warm.”
“Is it?”
“A bit. Feel.”
But Madeleine doesn’t want to. “Wanna go home now, Colleen?”
“No, I wanna tell you something, and if you ever tell, I’ll kill you.” Rex’s ears prick up and he lifts his head. “What is it boy?”
They follow Rex’s gaze, toward the woods. A crash — Madeleine’s heart leaps, she grabs Colleen’s arm, Colleen doesn’t push her away, they stand stock-still. Heavy footsteps. The leaves are shaking. Madeleine sinks her fingers into Colleen’s arm and Colleen says, “Shhh.”
There, amid cool green shadows — light brown jacket through the branches — a doe. Huge brown eyes. She looks at them from behind the jigsaw green and black of the forest fringe. Like a creature up from an underwater world, about to sample oxygen, that dangerous and irresistible nothing.
Rex goes into a crouch, growls softly. His shoulders move, he inches forward. “It’s okay, Rex.” He stops.
The deer steps from the woods into the meadow. Bends her head and starts to graze. They watch her, the three of them, oh for a long time, for five minutes, until the deer lifts her head and bounds away like a wave, diving back into the dark pool of trees.
That was Claire’s funeral.
“What were you going to tell me?” asks Madeleine.
They have turned away from the woods, from the small circle, they are leaving the spot. Madeleine sees a piece of blue shell in the grass — it looks like a piece of robin’s egg. She stoops to pick it up but, before she can, Colleen seizes her wrist and turns her face-on. In her other hand she holds her knife, open. She slaps the handle flat into Madeleine’s palm and closes Madeleine’s fist around it. Then she holds out her own palm and says, “Do it.”
“What?”
“Cut me,” says Colleen. “Then I’ll do you.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I won’t tell you a goddamn thing if you don’t, that’s why.”
Madeleine feels the carved weight of the knife handle and looks at Colleen’s open palm. “Don’t make it deep,” says Colleen, “just enough for blood.”
Colleen watches her. Madeleine hesitates. Colleen looks gritty as highway dirt, but her palm looks so soft. Madeleine lets the sharp edge rest across the fleshy part of Colleen’s palm. Then she presses, and pulls the blade toward herself. The skin parts and a row of red seeds sprouts, then seeps into the hollow of Colleen’s hand.
Colleen holds out her other hand for the knife. Madeleine gives it to her. Colleen waits, her cupped palm collecting blood. Madeleine extends her own left hand, palm up, clutching it around the wrist with her right as though to keep it from running away.
Colleen lifts the knife. Madeleine shuts her eyes and gasps. Then opens them. Colleen is looking at her, her mouth in a sarcastic tilt.
“You ready, Mighty Mouse?” Madeleine nods. She forces herself to watch, but before she can put on a brave face it’s over, and she has barely seen the knife move, neither did she feel it, but the red stripe has appeared like magic across her palm, widening, gracefully overflowing its banks. Colleen slaps her palm into Madeleine’s, holding tight, smooshing them together. Madeleine pushes back; it still doesn’t hurt.