Free Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking by Ivana Hruba

they knew any more than we did. So we all
imagined, collectively and separately, different things that might
or might not have occurred. It really was very draining.
    Course, this was just the tip
of the iceberg. Lilian had to be told, and Detective Martin was the
one who told her. Chris couldn’t face it. Chris wouldn’t even go
near the caravan. Sat in Captain Josh’s car, wrapped in a blanket,
teeth chattering.
    So I was the last man standing.
I stood beside Detective Martin, knocking on the door, to deliver
the dreadful news to Lilian. Course, I was a mess but somebody had
to hold it together. For all of our sakes. I stood there, waiting
for Lilian to open the door, and counting elephants. It’s something
Starling and I did when we hid in our room while Chris and Lilian
argued, back in the day.
    One elephant, two elephant,
three elephant… She opens the door. She’s in her bathrobe, looking
sleepy, looking hazy. She’s been smoking, all sorts.
    Detective Martin tells her. He
doesn’t have the bag with him but she believes him. She sways in
the doorway. Says she knew; she had long suspected the old man had
something to do with Starling going missing. She’d had a feeling,
you know. Lilian’s clutching at her throat, pulling at the lapels
of Chris’s robe. She’s looking straight at the detective. Course,
he reads into it. It’s his job to. He tells her that he will speak
with Drake, at the hospital right now as soon as he can get there—
but Lilian cuts him off with a laugh. She laughs, emitting a dry,
percussive sound, like bullets sinking into metal. In the next
breath she stops.
    ‘Dude,’ she waves her cigarette
dangerously close to his thin, dehydrated nose, ‘the old fuck’s
just died.’ She slams the door in his face.
     
     

 
    26
     
     
    So they turn old Drake’s inside
out. The cabin, the shed, the kennel. No more RIP Assassin. The
dog’s dug up. Sniffed over. Reburied. Meanwhile, in the house,
chaos reigns supreme. Things are sent off for analysis. The sheets
off Drake’s bed. Towels. Some kitchen utensils. A missing
pillowcase causes a storm of speculation, random thoughts shooting
all over the universe, then gurgling down a black hole. It’s all a
bit mad. Like they’re going to find Starling here. Seriously? The
old dude would just leave her lying about amongst the dope? It
doesn’t make sense. She’s gone. Gone to Heaven. So what does all
this matter? —Exactly.
    The old fuck’s dead. We won’t
be able to get our pound of flesh. That’s the only thing that would
have made a… something of a difference. To somebody. Not to me
cause I just want Starling back. Not to Lilian. She doesn’t know
what’s going on; sleepwalking now, even during the day. But Chris
is full of energy, full of rage. He hovers like a humming bird,
even when he’s still. It’s scary. I know where this is going. This
can’t last. This man is not long for this world, is my guess. So
I’m trying my best not to add to his pain. I’m being a good girl.
I’ve even gone back to school where I’m being noticed, again. I’m
used to it now. I won’t be chased away. There’s no point going
anywhere else. With parents like mine, word would spread everywhere
regardless of how far we’d go. Their little girl’s missing. The
weirdo grandad did it. Ahhh, no wonder… people would whisper,
pity us, imagine they could understand how it feels. And that can’t
be cause their little girl is not missing. So nobody has the
faintest how this feels. How you cling to— At least here, we’re
close to her. I can still go to the beach. To think about her. So
we might as well keep going with our useless lives here.
    The days go by, somehow. In
bed, I dream of Starling. It’s draining. It is. I’d rather see
Fairy but she’s sulking. She hasn’t come to me since. And she
screamed at me then. So she wasn’t herself. So I’m hoping we could
make up. Go back to where we started. But she’s not coming. She’s
having