Andrew Pyper - The Guardians

Mr. Schantz is stil recovering from the tragic loss of Miss Worth late last year. Elizabeth Worth, 16 at the time of her death, was found murdered in the Schantzes'

Caledonia Street home on November 12. Only two days after her memorial service, Mr. DeLisle was reported missing.

Though Chief Poole would not be drawn into open conjecture at his press conference, many have noted a connection between evidence that Miss Worth was raped before her death and Mr. DeLisle's missing status, not to mention the nature of his prior charges.

I finish reading lying on the floor. The first tendrils of dusty sunlight making their way toward me over the hardwood.

His name is Roy .

The boy was a real person once. A teenager the same age we were when we first entered the house to find Heather Langham in the celar.

He killed that girl .

Of course it's possible that someone other than Roy DeLisle, her foster brother, assaulted and then murdered Elizabeth Worth. It could have been another kid at school, a teacher, a stranger. But it wasn't. It was Roy's "restless ways" that invited him to the party, the same way he invited each of us decades later. He had done bad things in the homes he was dropped into before the Schantzes', and he had done another, even worse thing to Elizabeth Worth. And then he was gone.

But wherever Roy ran to, he's back in the Thurman house now. That's why Ben watched. Made sure the doors stayed closed. Prevented others from going in. Ben had made a prison for himself in this room, but he'd done it to keep the Thurman house a prison for Roy DeLisle.

I'm folding the clippings to slip them back inside the journal when something else fals out from its pages. A plain envelope.

I know what's inside before I open it. Not from the feel of its shape through the paper, not its surprising weight. I just know.

And then it's there, a coil of delicate chain and gold heart in the palm of my hand. Heather's locket. The one she was wearing when we buried her.

As though at the sound of someone coming up the stairs, I hastily tie the clippings with the same ribbon and, not knowing where else to put it, tuck the package back into the air vent under the bed. But not the locket. I slip its chain into my walet. Feel the gold heart press against my hip.

When I get to my feet again the dawn has finaly arrived, though the streets remain quiet. I take a seat at Ben's window and try not to think. About the clippings, about the locket. Discoveries that explain everything. Or nothing.

It's this effort to sit and simply breathe that at first prevents me from noticing the man standing on the sidewalk, directly in front of the Thurman house.

He has been there for some time, or at least as long as it has taken me to focus on the view below. His back to me. Canvas sneakers and lumberjack shirt and a John Deere bal cap turned backwards on his head.

I recognize Gary Pulinger, Tracey Flanagan's boyfriend, a split second before he turns. His eyes searching the houses on the McAuliffes' side of the street, alerted to a sound, or perhaps by the sense that he was being watched. He appears lost. It's as though he had thought he was in another, safer town al his life and only now recognized the depths of his error.

And then he spots me. I can read the swift consideration of options passing through his mind. In the end he simply starts up the slope toward the hospital at an intentionaly leisurely pace, an attempt to reinforce the ilusion that he didn't stop outside the house at al, but merely paused to inhale a breath of the sun- sweetened air before continuing on his way.

But he had been watching the house. Looking into its windows. Searching for something he both wanted and did not want to see.

MEMORY DIARY

Entry No. 15

High school ended with a prom I didn't go to, a graduation ceremony I was asked to leave for shouting "Loser!" during the valedictorian's address and a footbal game Grimshaw lost, during which we gathered in Carl's Ford at halftime. As soon as the next day, we were heading in different directions. Randy to attend drama school at a community colege in Peterborough. Carl to hitchhike out to Winnipeg to see an uncle of his we'd never heard of. And Ben to stay in his attic bedroom, watching.

Though I'd applied to a handful of universities and had even been accepted to a couple, I decided to move to Toronto, find some work busing tables and try to become someone else. It was a plan that my parents only halfheartedly objected to. "Your room's always here," my father assured me, his face rounded in a show of generosity, as if he might have otherwise turned it into a massage parlour or dog kennel. He figured I'd be back. And while he wished me wel, I believe there was some part of him that would have liked me to stitch together a life in Grimshaw as he did, be more contentedly defeated like him.

"Get ready to have your skuls explode," Carl said, lighting up.

The smoke blotted out the sun, the school, even the sound of fans cheering another of the visiting team's touchdowns.

"I guess we should talk about it," I said.

"I don't think we have to," Carl said.

"I'm talking about not talking about it. With anyone. Ever."

"I think we're pretty clear on that," Randy said.

"I hope so. Because there's no statute of limitations on kidnapping."

This took a minute to sink in.

"Let's make a pact," Ben said.

Randy turned to him. "You mean we should drink each other's blood or something?"

"Just a promise."

"Okay. We promise."

"No, we have to say it," Ben clarified. "And we have to hear each other say it."

We al nodded at this.

"What do we have to say?" Randy asked.

"We're the Guardians," I said.

Nobody seemed to have heard me. Except Ben.

"Okay. On three," he said. "One, two—"

We al said it. Three words that cleared the smoke from our faces, and we could see who we were.

[15]

I rip through my walet to find Barry Tate's card and cal his number at the cop shop. Yet when his voice mail picks up, I'm frozen. Barry asks for "complete details"

to be left in the message, but what are those? I saw a missing girl's boyfriend looking at a house. No more than that.

"If this is urgent," Officer Tate goes on, "press zero and your cal wil be transferred to 911."

Is this urgent? My heart certainly thinks so, taking runs at my ribs.

"Hi, Barry. It's Trev. Trevor. Sorry to bother you—gosh, I don't think this should bother you—but there's something I'd like to report. I left my cel number with you, right? Okay, so see you around."

I hang up.

Trev? Gosh? See you around ? What could Barry possibly think when he hears that? I know what . That poor guy with the shakes is losing his shit .

I get dressed and head downstairs. The house is quiet. A good thing, because I don't want Betty McAuliffe to catch me running out of here with my shoes in my hands.

"Coffee only takes a minute."

She's standing in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"Gosh," I say for the second time in this new, going-downhil- fast morning, "I didn't know you were up."

"Heard you bumping around."

"Sorry to wake you."

"Didn't say you did."

The two of us wait. Or it's just me waiting, feeling for a way out the front door.

"I wanted to ask," I say. "Did you happen to see my Dictaphone around anywhere?"

"Dicta-who?"

"It's a little recording machine. Seem to have misplaced it."

"That's what you were doing up there. I thought you were on the phone for hours on end. But you were talking to yourself."

"I suppose it's a little strange, isn't it?"