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NOLA KNOX
Friday, December 22, 1995
3:55 p.m.
The snow was just beginning to fall when Nola rounded the corner. Nick Brady’s car was sitting in front of their house. Great, she thought. He was pounding on the front door but no one answered. Nola paused. She didn’t especially want to run into Eve’s stupid boyfriend. Though Nola was only thirteen years old she knew better than her older sister what bad news Nick was. Nola scoffed at their relationship, told Eve she was stupid for being with such a jerk, but she was truly worried about her sister. Nick slammed his fist on the door one more time and then turned, rushed to his car and sped away.
Nola jogged the rest of the way to the house and pushed open the door. It was quiet. No music or television blaring. “Eve,” she called out. She slipped off her coat and hung it on the hook by the door. She had decided to come home to try to talk to her sister again, to get her to understand that what happened with the dog was no big deal. “Eve,” she shouted again. No answer.
Eve had it all wrong. The dog was already dead. Nola had happened on it by accident. Pissed off at Eve and the assholes at the bus stop, Nola needed to be by herself and decided the caves were as good a place as any. No one would look for her there except for Eve of course.
Nola hadn’t seen any obvious signs of traumatic injury on the dog’s body. She’d taken off her glove and buried her hand into its thick fur. The skin beneath was still warm. She searched for a pulse and found none. Maybe the dog was hit by a car on the highway and then dragged itself to the caves to die. Maybe it had died of old age. It would be hard to tell without checking more closely.
Nola had pulled out her pocketknife, not ideal but it would work. She sliced only once. An even measured cut, her hand steady. She felt something that she had never encountered before, something that she couldn’t put a name to. But then Eve came upon her and ran away horrified.
It wasn’t fair, Nola thought. People just didn’t understand.
Nola went upstairs in search of Eve. She pushed open her bedroom door and found it empty. Eve’s bed was rumpled, the book she was reading sitting on the pillow. Nola picked it up and returned it to the bookshelf. She wandered to the window. From this high vantage point Nola could see the entire neighborhood. It was quiet now. Most of the adults off at work. Mrs. Olhauser was probably in her kitchen baking spritz cookies.
A flash of color streaked across the Harpers’ long backyard. Eve, hurrying toward the bluffs, then disappearing as she stutter-stepped down the side of the bluff. Interesting, Nola thought. Then a few moments later came Maggie running after Eve. Even more interesting.
Something was happening. Nola rushed down the stairs, grabbed her coat. Felt for the heaviness of the knife in her pocket. It was getting colder and the snow was coming down in lazy loops. The cold, Nola thought, would help with preserving the dog but the moisture from the snow could cause a problem. Quietly, Nola fell into step behind Maggie Kennedy.
