Black Feathers (12 page)

Cassie awoke to the sound of her own scream, and sprung upward to a sitting position as it tore her throat raw. She pulled the scarf away from her face, and the sudden sharpness of the air was boiling water against her breath-moist skin.

She gasped and heaved, leaning over and pressing her eyes shut against the bright light on the wall above her.

Oh, God, oh, God, what have I done?

Breath whooped and howled in her throat. All she could think of was the way the knife had felt in her hand as she had twisted it in Sarah’s neck, the grinding, gristly vibrations of it—

Oh, God.

And then Skylark was there, rubbing her back, whispering close to her ear, “It’s okay. You’re all right.”

She whooped and gasped.

“Shh, it’s okay.”

One breath caught, and her lungs filled, the air so cold it burned, but oh so sweet. As she breathed, her heart slowed.

In two three four …

“Shh, you’re all right.”

Someone screamed in the square, and they both turned.

Katherine, one of the younger girls, had found her.

She had been on her way back from the bathroom and had
thought at first that the dark shadow in the fountain was a bag of garbage.

“Oh my God,” Skylark muttered, turning back to the camp.

Cassie wouldn’t let herself look away.

Sarah had fallen backward into the dry fountain. Her feet were in the air, her legs against the inside of the rim at a right angle to her body. Her arms were spread wide. There was a knife in her right hand. The other was empty. Her head lolled to one side, her eyes staring wide and unseeing into the violet sky, her lips white-blue and slightly parted. There was a deep gash, bloody and gaping, across her throat, a glistening red smile. Her head was framed by a nimbus of blood that pooled around her, copper in the rising light.

There was another pool of blood on the snowy ground outside the fountain.

When she couldn’t look any longer, Cassie turned, took several steps and vomited near a garbage can.

It’s happening here,
she thought.

“She said her name was Sarah.” Cassie’s voice was barely a whisper: she couldn’t seem to take in enough air to form words.

“Okay,” Constable Farrow said, writing in her notebook. “Had you known Sarah long?”

Cassie shook her head. “I only met her yesterday. The day before yesterday.” Time was starting to blur; it was getting harder and harder to keep track.

“Did she seem troubled to you?”

Cassie looked around the breezeway. Almost everyone was gone. When Brother Paul had said that he was going to
call the police, everyone had scattered. Nobody wanted to be around when the police arrived; nobody wanted to answer any questions.

Cassie had stayed.

“Well?”

“Pardon me?” Cassie asked, shaking her head, trying to clear it.

The cop muttered something that Cassie didn’t catch. “Did Sarah seem troubled to you?” She spoke slowly and clearly.

Over by the fountain, several police officers were talking with Brother Paul while a group of cops and paramedics milled around, voices hushed, giving wide berth to people in white full-body suits who were examining Sarah’s body and the ground around her. From that distance and angle, Cassie couldn’t see the blood, but she didn’t need to: the images were seared onto her brain.

It’s happening here now.

“Jesus Christ,” the cop muttered, when Cassie didn’t answer. She shook her head and paced a few steps away.

“Hey, cut her some slack,” her partner said, stepping toward Cassie. “This has got to be tough.”

Farrow waved her hand dismissively.

“Hey, Cassie,” Constable Harrison said, leaning slightly forward. “Are you all right? I know this can’t be easy.”

“I’m all right,” she lied.

“Good,” Harrison said. “We’ve only got a couple more questions, then we’ll be done, all right?”

Cassie nodded and tried to focus on Harrison. “I’ll try.”

“Good.” He smiled. “Now, did you have any conversations with”—he looked down at his notebook—“Sarah over the last couple of days?”

“One or two.”

“Did she seem upset to you?”

I knew it was you.

“Did you have any indication that she might be planning to hurt herself, or do something like this?”

The words didn’t make any sense. “Hurt herself?”

Harrison glanced at his partner. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I thought someone would have told you.”

“She did this to herself?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Someone should have told you.” Another glance at his partner. “It’s too early to be one hundred per cent certain, but, yeah, it looks like your friend …”

“So it wasn’t the killer? The one from the newspaper?” She tried to picture it: Sarah standing beside the fountain, pressing the knife into her own throat, falling backward into the fountain as the blood gushed out.

It didn’t make sense.

Not when she could remember the weight of the knife in her hand so clearly.

Harrison shook his head. “No, there’s nothing to suggest there’s any connection to that investigation.”

“I think that’s what she was afraid of,” Cassie said falteringly.

“The murders?”

Cassie nodded. “She came up to me yesterday.” The constable clicked his pen and started to write. “I was near the courthouse, and I had a newspaper, and she saw … She got really upset.” Cassie remembered the way she had hurried away, the sound of her voice in the blowing snow.

“Did she say why she was upset? Was there something in particular?”

Cassie took a deep breath. “She said, ‘It’s happening here now.’ Or something like that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Farrow asked, and Harrison shot her a look.

“You’re sure she was talking about the murders?”

Cassie hesitated. “I don’t know.”

Harrison made a note as Cassie tried to remember the exact details of the conversation. “She seemed to have some problems. Mentally …” Her voice trailed off.

Harrison nodded and made another note in his book. “Can you think of anything else?”

In the square one of the paramedics zipped up the black vinyl bag on the stretcher.

Cassie turned away, tried to think of anything she might have forgotten. “I don’t think so. She didn’t really—” She stopped herself from saying that Sarah hadn’t made a whole lot of sense. “She didn’t say a lot.”

“Okay,” Harrison said, as he closed his notebook. “We’ll—”

“She was from Edmonton,” Cassie said quickly, remembering. “Sarah from Edmonton.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Everything helps. We want to try to find her family.”

He stopped as the stretcher rolled past them, its wheels echoing off the concrete. Cassie stared at the heavy black bag, watched as the paramedics rolled the stretcher into the back of the ambulance on the other side of the breezeway, where the Outreach van usually parked. There was no hurry, no sense of urgency. They took their time, made sure the back door was closed, talking to each other.

When they pulled out a few minutes later, they didn’t turn their sirens on. The ambulance blended into the early-morning traffic.

She didn’t know what to do.

After the ambulance pulled away, it was only the police left, wandering through the breezeway, measuring and photographing the square. The light was hard and cold, especially compared with the warmth of the camp the night before.

Across the breezeway, Brother Paul looked toward her and started to approach. She shook her head. Hefting her backpack onto her shoulder, she walked away from the camp as quickly as she could without breaking into a run.

Skylark had run off as soon as Brother Paul had left to call the police; she had no idea how to find her, no idea where to even start looking.

Cassie ended up at the courthouse because there was nowhere else for her to go. She settled into her spot after grabbing a discarded newspaper from the top of the garbage can.

She didn’t read it, just stared at the front page for a long time. The headline was something about the camp, but she couldn’t even focus on it, let alone read.

She spent a long time looking at her hands. Her right hand in particular.

The hand that had held the knife.

She could still feel it: the thickness of the hilt, how cold it had been at first, the way it had warmed in her grip.

The way it had felt skating across Sarah’s throat, leaving the deep red gash behind. The gristly, grinding resistance as she had twisted it …

She turned her hand, watching it in the stark light.

“You don’t have your hat out.”

She jumped at the sound of the voice, glanced up.

A man was towering above her, the wind blowing his overcoat around his brown suit, tossing his sandy hair.

His clothes, his smile seemed familiar. “What?”

He lifted his hand; he was pinching several coins between his thumb and forefinger. “I was going to make a contribution, but you don’t have your hat out.” His tone was light, friendly.

“Oh, sorry.” She fumbled for her backpack.

“Are you all right?” he asked, crouching slightly to her eye level, his face tightening with concern.

Cassie recognized him then: the man who had dropped the toonie in her hat the day before.

“Hello?”

She shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m okay.”

“Okay,” he said. But he didn’t move. He obviously didn’t believe her.

“I’m Cliff,” he said. “Cliff Wolcott.”

He extended his hand into the silence between them.

Cassie took it carefully, shook it. “Dorothy,” she said.

Releasing her hand, he rose to his feet. “Listen,” he said. “I was going to just …” He lifted his hand again, still holding the coins. “But I was on my way for coffee. Can I bring you anything? Are you hungry?”

Her stomach growled at the question, but she shook her head. “No, that’s all right.”

“I can bring you a coffee.”

She smiled. “That’s all right,” she said. “I’m okay.”

He nodded, mostly to himself. “I’ll bring you something. It’s no big deal.”

She started to protest again, but he said, “I’ll be right back.”

As he hurried along the sidewalk, her heart jumped in her
chest: Skylark waved from the other side of the street and jaywalked toward her, smiling.

“Can I—” She gestured at the ground next to Cassie. “Just for a minute?”

Skylark folded herself onto the pavement, shifting a little to be sure she was settled just right.

“Pretty quiet out here,” she said, looking both ways along the sidewalk as she adjusted her knapsack beside her.

“I think I missed the morning rush.” Cassie’s breath misted in the air. She folded the newspaper and placed her hat on the concrete.

“I’m sorry about that,” Skylark said. “About taking off.”

Cassie shrugged. “I know. The police.”

“Was it awful?”

“It was fine. They were fine.” Better than the last time. “They just wanted to know if I knew anything.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t think so.”

Skylark looked at her, then shouldered her gently. “That was supposed to be a joke.”

“Oh.” She didn’t really get it. Or maybe she wasn’t in the mood for joking.