Free Olympia by Dennis Bock Page A

Mediterranean. You’ve never sailed on salt water. It keeps the boat higher. It’s more buoyant.” I know my mother’s listening. She doesn’t say anything. I see her looking at Willy. He’s looking at the cane between his knees. But I can’t help wondering. I want to taste salt water.

    That night I hear crying through the bedroom wall. Ruby’s already asleep. I listen to the hard words I remember from last summer when my mother’s brother came to visit us in Canada; then the whispers and low tones my mother shared with Willy the first night here around the kitchen table. Then silence, and the sound of crickets returns.

    â€œCome on,” I say, leading Ruby down the stairs to the basement. We’ve already been here three days. My father’s taken to washing the car every afternoon in anticipation of our release. My mother waits hand and foot on Willy. Ulla likes us being here. It gives her someone to talk to. She and my mother cook together and go for long walks in the pasture when Willy takes his afternoon nap, the time of day Ruby and I are told to be quiet around the house. I’ve been coming down here every day to check on the jam jars. They’re dust-free now, wiped clean on pant legs and shirts. The light of the single bulb hanging from the rafters holds the small animals in trumpet-coloured suspension.

    â€œTake this one,” I say. “And this one. Can you carry three?”

    â€œI can carry more than you,” Ruby says. It’s after dark now. The grown-ups are around front sitting in the folding chairs. “Take as many as you can but don’t drop them or you’ll get the Mustard Brain disease.”

    â€œBut they’re dead little things,” she says.

    There are seven jars between us
.
We walk over the compound, past the Opel. Its rims shine in the moonlight, the waiting getaway car. The barn emerges like a silent train from the dark, a blacker shape against the grey night. We walk downhill without talking, the jars pressed against our chests. There’s the sound of our footsteps against the touch of darkness and small waves riding against the lids of our Jars.

    â€œIt’s okay here,” I say. “Put them down.” I fumble in my pocket, take out the pack of matches. “You’re not going to say anything. Promise again. Remember that Mom and Dad hate tattlers.” I wait for her complicity before I show her the matches. I strike one between us and her face appears before me as though slipped out from between black curtains. She doesn’t say anything. I throw the match down to the ground, the curtains close again over her face.

    â€œThese’ll burn good,” I say, unscrewing the lid of the first jar. The smell of gasoline. “Spaz-head won’t even notice them gone.” I pour the contents over the ground. “It’s just dead animals.”

    I tell Ruby to stand back. “Okay. Where are you now?” I ask carefully. I want to make sure her voice is far enough away and that the rest of the jars are a safe distance from the dampened grass. “Get ready,” I say, then strike the match and wait a moment for it to flare, watch the flame begin to crawl down the stick. In one motion I step back and throw the match over the puddle and a low blue carpet of fire spreads at our feet, peels the darkness away from Ruby’s face beside me. In the middle of the flame one of Willy’s dead things shows its teeth. Hisses at the little pyro I’ve become. We do the seven jars slowly, methodically, like criminals disposing of the evidence. When we’re finished I return the empty jars to the basement. The perfect crime.

    The next day before breakfast I go and check out the fire pit. It’s a big black scar on the grass. A chemical smell hangs in the air. Not all the bones have disintegrated. I nudge them with a stick and make out a small claw. But the vandalism is off the