The Colors of Madeleine 01: Corner of White (7 page)

The little girl, who had just lifted a cookie to her mouth, paused and stared at the Sheriff.

The Sheriff stood and walked to the window. He looked out into the heavy rain and almost-night.

“Abel Baranski, as you know, used to run that electronics repair shop,” Hector began. “His brother, Jon Baranski, co-owned the Watermelon Inn with his wife, Alanna. And Mischka Tegan was a high-school physics teacher. A year ago, we woke one morning, to find all three were lost.”

The Twicklehams gasped, the little girl most loudly. Her parents frowned slightly, looking down at the child and back up at the Sheriff.

“I’m sorry to say this in front of your little one,” the Sheriff said. “But she’ll hear it at school anyway — in gruesome detail, no doubt. Now, young Derrin.” The Sheriff crouched awkwardly by her side.
“What happened that night was an attack from a third-level Purple. But I don’t want you to be afraid. Our warning tower’s one of the best in the province, and that I know for a fact.” Here his voice rose slightly, taking on a sharpness, but he caught it and turned back to Derrin. “When you hear the bells, you get inside. All right?”

He addressed her parents again, his voice low and hoarse.

“Jon Baranski was found dead out on Acres Road,” he said. “But Abel, our electronics guy — could fix anything even
looked
like a circuit board — and Mischka, the teacher — well, they were gone. Abel’s truck, engine still running, abandoned by the side of the road.”

They stared.

“The Purple had taken them, as Purples sometimes do.”

“Oh, now.” Bartholomew’s forehead seemed to sag; Fleta’s mouth did the same.

“And that’s why the electronics shop is vacant,” whispered Fleta.

“We’ve been insensitive,” said Bartholomew firmly. “As to the shedded teeth of a lionsnake.”

“We have,” his wife agreed. “Can you forgive us?”

The Sheriff limped back to the window. “You think I told you that to make you feel bad? How could you have known? You’ll be staying at the Watermelon tonight, is all. It’s run by Alanna, and she lost her husband, Jon. And her tiny girl, Corrie-Lynn, well, she lost her daddy.”

“We’ll be more tactful from now on,” said Bartholomew. “Thank you for sharing.” He stood and formally shook the Sheriff’s hand.

“And then too you’ll be seeing Petra Baranski tomorrow, no doubt.” The Sheriff withdrew his hand, turning so they could not see his grimace at the handshake. “Asking if she can clear out Abel’s things sooner than planned. And why shouldn’t you, but —”

“But it will be difficult for her.” Now Mrs. Twickleham stood, nodding, and she also grasped the Sheriff’s hand. He flinched this time, but her gaze was lost to tears. “We see that now.”

“Difficult for her,” Jimmy agreed. “And for her boy, Elliot.”

“And Elliot,” the Sheriff said firmly, “is a very fine lad.”

They were all standing now, by the window.

The Sheriff spoke again. “As for how Elliot feels about his mother re-letting the shop,” he said, “well, there’s something else you should know. Everyone knows that Abel and Mischka are never coming back — there’s not a Purple in the Kingdom that’ll get you in its talons, or take you to its caverns, and let you live. But Elliot? He’s already taken five or six journeys in search of his dad. He’s been to the Purple Caverns of Nature Strip, and to the ones in the Golden Coast, and the Purples have nearly killed him — tore him up anyhow — and he’s planning on taking another trip, right after the deftball finals next week.”

There was a sad quiet.

“He’s got it in his head that he’s bringing his dad home, see? And while he might not blame his mother for renting out his dad’s shop, well, he could easily blame
you
for being there, if you see my logic.”

Mr. and Mrs. Twickleham nodded. “We’ll be prepared,” said Fleta.

“There’s more.” The Sheriff hesitated. “Elliot’s a popular kid. He’s got a group of friends, see, grew up together, most of them. And, well …”

The Twicklehams waited.

“If Elliot doesn’t like you, neither will those friends.”

Now the Twicklehams smiled. “Oh, but they’re just kids. Teenagers, yes?”

“Kids raised on farms,” the Sheriff said bluntly, “are not exactly kids.”

Jimmy nodded his agreement, and the Twicklehams, all three of them, raised eyebrows.

There was silence, and Hector’s face softened.

“Used to be,” he said, “Elliot’d come to the high school every day around this time and practice throwing ball with his dad. He’s a champion deftball player, is Elliot, can throw a ball so high it’ll bruise the sky. Now you know what he does? He practices against the wall.”

He pointed through the window to the shadowy figure in the high-school grounds across the road.

They all peered into the darkness. Little Derrin rose on her toes so she could see.

Each time Elliot threw the ball, he also threw himself onto the ground, rolled, then jumped to his feet and held up a hand to catch it.

“We should be going,” said Fleta. “It’s late.”

“I’ll give you a ride,” Jimmy offered.

They all moved toward the door, but the Sheriff turned back to look across at Elliot again.

That wall was getting trounced.

6.

T
wo days later it was summertime in Bonfire again.

“Fifth time in a month!” Clover Mackie, town seamstress, called from her porch. “Each one hotter than the last.”

She had a glass of orange juice in one hand and a battery-powered fan in the other.

Elliot was approaching. He wore jeans and a faded gray T-shirt. Old sneakers without socks. A baseball cap shadowing his face.

“You reckon you could get the town to dig a swimming pool in the square?” Clover continued.

Elliot grinned briefly, pushed through the gate, and ran up the three steps to the porch. He swung his backpack onto the empty chair and opened its straps as the clock tower started up its chiming.

“Eight o’clock in the morning,” Clover continued, “and already I’m drooping like a tea bag. What have you got there?”

Elliot placed a small burlap sack on the table, alongside Clover’s jug of orange juice. The juice swayed, its pulp jittering, then it stilled.

“Bananas,” he said. “Overripe so we thought you might like them for that great banana cake of yours.”

“Ah, you’re a fine pair, you and your mother. You should both come by tomorrow and I’ll run you up a new pair of gardening gloves each. Stay and have some orange juice for now! School won’t start for a while yet. It’s fresh squeezed.”

But Elliot was already standing and re-strapping his backpack.

“Gotta get over to the shop,” he said. “That family, the Twicklehams, from Olde Quainte. They came to town early.”

Clover let her finger slip from the fan, so the whirring noise stopped abruptly.

“I heard,” she said. “That’ll be rough on you. Clearing out your dad’s shop. You want any help? I’m stronger than I look, you know.” She held up her bare right arm and clenched a fist to show off her muscles.

“Never doubted you were a tough one, Clover.” Elliot smiled as he headed down the stairs. “But we’ve got it under control.”

He raised a hand briefly, then turned back. “I hear this summer’s supposed to be shorter than the last,” he called. “Spring expected day after tomorrow.”

Then he walked out into the heat.

Abel Baranski Electronics Repair was on Broad Street, two blocks east of the square. It was right between the veterinarian and the barber’s shop.

The truck stood at the curb outside, shining fiercely in the sun.

The shop door was ajar, the blinds raised.

First time in almost a year.

At street level, there was the one big room. There was a counter and, a few feet behind that, a high workbench. A televisual machine
(or “TV” as they called it) lay facedown on the bench. The other side of the room held rows of wide shelves crowded with appliances.

Shafts of sunlight were blinking their way into the room now, and the dust was in a panic. A vacuum cleaner and a couple of buckets stood just inside the door. His mother must have brought them in.

“That you, Elliot?” she called now, from upstairs.

At the top of the stairs, there was a little flat. Kitchenette attached to living room, with a good-size window overlooking Broad Street. Down the hallway, a tiny bathroom and two bedrooms, each piled high with junk — old toolboxes, a broken circular saw, pieces of TVs, crowbars, and hammers — and, at the back of the smaller bedroom, Elliot’s mother.

She was washing the window.

Elliot watched her a moment.

“Funny place to start,” he said.

“I know.” She turned, wringing a cloth into a bucket as she did. “But I’ve never seen a window so coated with grime — and when I brought them through here yesterday, the little girl came right up to this window. She can’t speak, you know, so she ought to be able to see through her window.”

“Can’t argue with that,” said Elliot, turning to go. “I’ll start downstairs.”

“They seem like good people, Elliot,” his mother said. “The Twickleham family, I mean.”

Elliot hesitated. He scratched at his eyebrow.

“Of course,” she murmured, almost to herself, “they’re from Olde Quainte, as you know, and they did inform me that this place is ‘exactly like to a jittering horsetrap,’ which,” she paused, looked around, “well, I don’t see it.”

“Indeed, and do you not?” Elliot’s eyes sparked now. “For here in my quickening early-morning mind I see
much
that is like to a cascade of turtles and a veritable basket of toadstools.”

“Isn’t it not?” agreed his mother, getting into character as she reached for the water spray and dazzled the window. “And isn’t my stomach now rumbling like to what one of my son Elliot’s blueberry muffins might cure if he would only fetch one from the truck for — Hey, there’s your buddies, Elliot.”

She interrupted herself, leaning closer to the window.

Down below, across the street, a group of five teenagers walked toward the high school. Two boys — one tall and lanky, one shorter — and three girls. One of the girls was holding the end of her own long red braid and pointing it at the taller of the boys, talking fast as she did so. The others were laughing. Just as they reached the corner, another of the girls — thin and dark, a saxophone case over her shoulder — turned, and looked straight toward the window. She paused a moment, her eyes wandering over the Baranski shop and the truck parked on the curb outside. Then she carried on.

“She’s keen on you, Elliot,” his mother told him. “I saw it clear as you like the other day when they were over.”

Elliot was quiet now, watching his friends disappear around the corner.

“Don’t go starting something, will you? You’ll just go and break her heart. You’re perfect, see,” his mother explained, “and that can be a flaw of its own.”

Elliot laughed. “Ah, perfect is like to a runaway palm tree with a head cold, or a dandelion uprooted in some other bizarre, unrelated thing. I’ll get you the muffins from the truck.”

He took the steps two at a time, still grinning to himself.

But crossing the shop, he paused and glanced at the TV on the workbench. A panel had been removed from its back so you could glimpse a tangle of wires.

“Who do you belong to anyhow?” he said aloud.

His voice was interested, neutral. He imagined somebody in this town, somebody sitting on a couch, gazing at the empty spot where their TV should be.

He moved to the side of the workbench and looked more closely at the clutter. A circuit board sat patiently alongside the open-backed TV, and beside that, a soldering iron, a multimeter, and a pair of snippers.

The snippers were so familiar Elliot had to turn away.

Hanging on the wall behind the workbench was a corkboard. It was covered with printed papers, photos, and postcards — and one tiny note in his father’s handwriting. Something jumped in Elliot’s chest and he moved toward the paper fast — but it only said:

He’d done the exact same thing a year ago. He and his mother had come into the shop then, a few days after it had happened, and he’d seen that very note, and his heart had startled — but it had been nothing. Technical details.