Free The Brittle Limit, a Novel by Kae Bell

side streets, lined with modest
single-story family shops. On every corner, tuk-tuk and moto-dop
drivers congregated, talking, eating, and waiting for a fare.
Grungy western backpackers walked down the street, their unwashed
dreadlocks like matted cats. They peered at Severine as she sped
by.
    As Severine drove over a short bridge, she
held her breath. The open canal below her was about five feet wide,
its murky water dotted with floating water bottles, soda cans, and
other unmentionable debris. It snaked its way through the city,
behind homes, businesses, pagodas and museums, open to refuse from
all.
    A half-mile farther, she turned right and
drove twenty feet down a quiet lane, where she pulled up next to a
three-story pink house with a wide concrete courtyard, behind a
high iron gate.
    She let herself in, her key hanging from a
white shoelace around her neck. She hadn’t been back home since the
trip to Mondulkiri. Her heart beat hard as she walked up the steps.
Pots and pans crashed in a neighbor’s kitchen nearby. Somewhere,
someone practiced a Jack Johnson song on an out-of-tune guitar.
    As soon as she reached the front door,
Severine knew something was wrong. The deadbolt was not on, which
she knew she’d locked. The pink curtain that covered the glass had
been pushed back a couple inches, as if someone had been peering
out. Watching.
    “Hello?” she called out, stepping in to the
hallway. She heard some footsteps in the back of the house near the
kitchen and saw a figure jump out an open window onto the bamboo
scaffolding outside.
    “Damn it,” she said. She’d known the workers
were coming to do work on the roof and she’d forgotten to close all
the windows before they started. She figured the intruder was a
mischievous kid. The local children were fascinated by her
collection of glass frogs on display in a bookshelf in the front
hall. She’d been collecting them since she was little, her father
presenting one to her after each of his trips abroad. Other than
the clothes on her back, the collection was the only thing she’d
brought with her from France.
    She flicked on the hallway light and
gasped.
    The hallway floor was covered with broken
glass. Her collection had been knocked to the ground, the figures
smashed, the pieces kicked up and down the wood floors. She walked
quickly past the mess into the living room.
    There she saw papers strewn across the floor,
boxes overturned, the desk drawers pulled out. The sofa cushions
had been sliced open and the stuffing pulled out. A large ceramic
Buddha had been lifted up and smashed on the wood floor. It lay
shattered in pieces by the window. She stepped toward the window
and picked up a fragment. It had been a gift from her husband.
    Severine couldn’t process this alone. She
pulled out her phone and rooted in her purse for the slip of paper
Andrew had given her.
    He answered on the first ring.
    “So, now I need your help.” She described the
scene in her hallway and living room.
    Andrew asked, “Where do you live?”
    She gave him the address, then sat on the
torn sofa, staring at the broken pieces.
    *******
    By the time Andrew arrived, the moon had
risen halfway into the clear sky. Severine sat on the top step of
the outside stairs, watching him, smoking a thin cigarette and
listening to the buzzing insects droning overhead, playing Russian
roulette in the bright porch light.
    With a nod from Severine, the night guard -
standard in most residences -opened the heavy gate, pushing its
weight with a practiced hand. Andrew rushed in, climbing the stairs
two steps at a time. As he approached, Severine stubbed out her
cigarette on the concrete, stood and turned, wordlessly opening the
front screen door for Andrew to go in. She followed him.
    The lights were all on in the house. Andrew
surveyed the mess in the hallway. “Shit.” He turned to her,
studying Severine’s face to get a sense of how she was handling
this. So far so good.
    “Do you know what they