Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

As he left the room, Lydia’s purse caught his eye. He looked out the window again; the novices were slowly on their way back to the building. He rummaged through the bag, a compulsion he’d had for as long as he could remember. His mother rapped his knuckles when she caught him, but he didn’t think that was fair because he never intended to steal. The habit persisted, occasionally getting him in trouble with girlfriends. He justified the quirk as the naturally curious predilection of a born detective.

He pulled a folded paper from the side pocket, focusing on one of the paragraphs:

Rule Number Three: As time goes by, you will find that you are becoming more “yourself.” But remember —while ADULTS are PLAYFUL, and CHILDLIKE qualities are usually tolerated and enjoyed, do NOT call ATTENTION to yourself with too much CRAZY HORSEPLAY! Listen to your Landlord!!!!

That was unexpected—he didn’t peg Lydia as a New Agey “inner child” workshop-type.

(But that part about landlords…?)

He stuffed it back when he heard their footsteps in the hall.

1.

Each day after work, at Lydia’s place in Richmond, they threw themselves on the couch and measured their progress. It was Friday, the end of a week that had brought them to their knees.

They were scared.

It wasn’t because they didn’t yet have the leads they hoped for (it was still so early in the investigation)—no, it was something else, something ominous. They shared a disquieting sense of pending doom, as if any day the rug of the moment of balance would be yanked from beneath their feet, banished forever. Inexorably, their initial, almost religious feeling of purpose was being stripped away, replaced by indifference and accidie.

A listlessness, a sickening blankness, crept in like a fog.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” said Lydia. “I mean, aren’t we supposed to know what we’re doing by now?”

“Like I’m the expert?” said Daniel.

“Well, aren’t we kind of supposed to be the ‘experts’? And you know what I mean, Troy. By now, we’re supposed to at least already have some sort of an idea—”

“I know what you mean.” He was ruminative but noncommittal. It just wasn’t a fun thing to talk about.

A few days ago they began calling each other by their child-tenant names, but only while at home. The Porter told them that would happen—a “crossover day” when the children became not so much dominant as present , and began to assert themselves within the borrowed brains and bodies of their landlords. From then on, adult and child would enhance each other, preparing the way for the moment of balance . (In speaking of that process, the landlords often used a word not in the children’s vocabulary: “synergy.”) By blending beings—Lydia with Maya, Daniel with Troy—the end result would be far greater than its separate parts.

“I still can’t shake this feeling,” he said.

“What feeling.”

“That I’ve met him before.”

“Who.”

“Our supervisor—Detective Wylde.”

“Well, he’s an old friend of the sheriff, isn’t he? You’ve probably seen him around.”

“ Maybe ,” he said, elongating the word.

“They used to work together in the Falls.”

“I know, I know.” He paused to organize his thoughts. “I’ll tell you something else that’s been troubling me,” said Daniel. “Don’t you think it’s weird that we’re cops?”

“Weird like how?”

“And not just cops— cold case cops.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“It’s just that… everything Annie’s told us about the mystery of it all, everything we’ve learned at Meetings—let me ask you this.” His smile became ironic. “When the train brings everyone back, does it drop them off to enroll in detective school? Are all the other kids, like, secretly going to night classes to learn about investigative techniques? Because that’s what we’re doing, isn’t it? Where’s the so-called mystery in that ?”

“I guess we are the only ones. Who are cops, I mean.”

“You better believe we are! Fucking ‘Macarena’ José wasn’t exactly Sherlock Holmes.”

“Please don’t use bad words,” she said. “But I still don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

“Come on, Maya! Don’t you think it’s just a little bit strange that out of everyone in the group, we happen to be the ones who are actual cold case cops? We solve old murders for a living!”

Something clicked in her head. “Oh my God,” she said, with a shiver. “That is totally brilliant . But what does it mean?”

“I’m not the expert, sis.”

“We have to talk to Annie—”

“At the next Meeting. We’ll talk to her after.”

“I don’t want to wait—let’s find out where she lives!”

“Down, girl. Don’t go off the deep end, Freckles.”

“It’s a little too fucking late for that ,” she exclaimed.

“You swore, you swore, you swore!” he said, in delight.

“ Lydia swore!”

She blushed, clapping a hand over her mouth in prudish repentance. She started to giggle and Troy did too until both were practically rolling on the floor.

After they composed themselves, he said, “You know, I did kind of talk to Annie about it already.”

“What!”

“Just a little …”

“When, when, when ?”

“The last time we saw her.”

“Oh my God, what did you say?”

“What I already told you… but I hadn’t really thought about it as much as I have now. I said, ‘Annie, if after we get here we’re just supposed to know —you said it’s this mysterious knowledge that just comes—if that’s supposed to be what happens, why are my sister and I, like, in training to be cold case cops?’”

“And what did she say?” said Lydia-Maya, rapt.

“The Porter was, like, stumped . And it wasn’t some teaching moment either—you know, when she goes all Yoda-‘more-shall-be-revealed.’ Which was what I was expecting. She could have said that being cold case cops was just random—a random thing that didn’t mean anything. But she didn’t. Nope! Wouldn’t go there. It was like my question had seriously fucked her up.”

He anticipated Maya swatting him for the expletive but she ignored it, staring out the window in the same way she did when her brother used to read to her from a spooky fairy tale book.

That night, Lydia sat bolt upright, startling him.

“Oh my God,” she said. Her face was wet with the tears she’d shed while dreaming.

“What’s going on?” he said, groggily.

“It’s here!” she said, blissed out.

“What?”

“It’s here, I know it… I know now—” She paused and he waited for her to speak. “We need to get up! We need to go …”

“Go where?”

“We need to go to the airport.”

“O- kayyyy ,” he said. He looked at his phone; it was a little after 4:00 A.M. “So where to? Barcelona? Paris? How about Barbados?”

“St. Cloud.”

“St. Cloud, Minnesoda pop?”

“This isn’t a joke, Daniel!”

She leapt from bed and stripped off her PJs. The Daniel part liked to see her nude, but the Troy part looked away. He sat up and started to sing. “‘Don’t know why… there’s no clouds up in the sky, stormy weather…’”

“It’s no sun up in the sky, not ‘ clouds ,’ doodie-breath. And it’s going to be cold, so dress accordingly.”