The Qualities of Wood. Mary White Vensel
‘Well, yes. Why?’
She looked at Vivian curiously. ‘For protection.’
‘The sheriff seems to think it was an accident.’
‘That’s not what I heard.’ At once, the woman changed her posture, straightening her back. She looked over her shoulder. ‘Well, I can’t…’
Vivian leaned forward. ‘What did you hear?’
The woman contemplated for a moment then squinted, her eyes catlike. ‘I heard it’s not a foregone conclusion.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They say the girl fell, right?’
Vivian nodded.
‘And hit her head on the rock?’
‘Yes.’
The woman paused, puckering her lips. ‘Say you’re running and you trip on something and fall. Where would your hands be?’
‘My hands?’
‘You’re running and your feet hit something and you fall forward.’
‘I don’t know.’
The woman shook her head irritably, then glanced over her shoulder again. ‘Your hands would be up, near your chest or your face, depending how far they got.’ She demonstrated. ‘You would try to break the fall, by instinct. That’s why kids on roller-skates are supposed to wear those wrist things, because they break their wrists more than anything else.’
‘So?’
‘Chanelle Brodie’s hands were at her side, like this.’
Vivian peered over the counter to see the woman’s arms, pressed to her sides like a soldier at attention.
‘Weird, isn’t it?’ the woman said.
‘I guess.’
‘Like an execution,’ she almost hissed.
They concluded their business and Vivian thanked the woman. Outside, the morning brightness was a shock. She locked the truck and started down the street toward the restaurant Katherine had suggested, thinking about the conversation with the woman at The Sentinel. What she had said about instinct seemed reasonable. Small children often fell on their faces, cutting their lips open or bruising their cheeks, but after a certain age, injuries happened more to limbs. Older children scraped their knees and elbows, broke arms and fingers. It seemed logical that if a seventeen-year-old girl had fallen in the woods, her hands would have gone up to break her fall.
Vivian passed a toy store and a women’s clothing boutique. The streets were quiet for mid-morning, most businesses still closed. She lowered her sunglasses to read the sign on the door of a flower shop: Open weekdays at eleven. Most of the places were the same. She was meeting Katherine at eleven-thirty, and still had an hour to kill. She reached the plaza with the statue of William Clement, sat on a red-painted bench, and opened her complimentary copy of The Sentinel.
There were two articles about Chanelle Brodie, the first one on the front page: Local Girl, 17, Found Dead. The article was short, just covering the most basic facts; that the body was found face down, on a large rock, and that the death was believed to be an accident. More information would follow after an autopsy, it said. The other article, buried on page six, talked about an impromptu memorial service that took place at Chanelle’s high school. The entire fence surrounding the football field was threaded with flowers. The formal services would be held in a few days.
She wondered again what Chanelle had been doing in the woods behind their property. Vivian thought about a small box she buried in her backyard when she was young. The box contained mementos: notes she had received from a boy, a plastic multi-colored bracelet, a picture of her mother as a teenager. Between the gnarled roots of an old, dried-up tree, she dug a hole and covered the box with a thin layer of dirt. She thought: Maybe Chanelle had a hiding place in the woods; that would explain why she went there alone. Then again, maybe she did most things by herself, being an only child. Vivian could relate to that.
‘Hey there!’
Vivian opened her eyes. The sun glared through her sunglasses.
Katherine moved over, blocking the light. ‘I thought that was you. I drove by a minute ago.’
‘None of the stores were open,’ Vivian said. ‘I thought I’d read the paper and enjoy the sun a little.’
‘I keep telling Max that we should open later like everyone else, but some people like to drop off their cleaning on the way to work.’ She looked up at the sky. ‘Feels like another hot one, doesn’t it? July is going out with a bang, I swear.’
They walked across the plaza, over the jagged shadow of William Clement and horse.
Katherine said, ‘This place has a great salad bar, and it should be pretty fresh since we’ll get there before the lunch crowd.’
Vivian looked up and down the streets, which were clear but beginning to show a few sporadic signs of life. She couldn’t imagine any type of crowd anywhere on this street, lunchtime or otherwise. There was a pregnant stillness, like a suspenseful movie. Any moment, a mad gunman would burst from the bank or someone would scream and fall from the top of a building.
‘Those kids were a handful today,’ Katherine said.
‘What grade?’
‘Third. Eight and nine years old. They’re hard to handle during the summer. It’s like the heat gets to their little brains.’ She laughed, pleased with herself. ‘What did you think of that storm?’
‘Windy, wasn’t it? I filled a trash bag with leaves and branches.’
Katherine grabbed Vivian’s upper arm. ‘I still can’t believe it. One of the teachers at the school heard that Chanelle had been missing for almost three weeks. She has a friend who knows Kitty.’
‘Kitty?’
‘Mrs Brodie, Chanelle’s mother. Her name is Katlyn but she’s always gone by Kitty.’ She made a clicking sound with her tongue. ‘She had a hard time raising that child alone. Chanelle was a magnet for trouble.’
‘More trouble than most teenagers?’ Vivian asked.
‘That’s a good question. It’s been so long since I was one myself.’
They were seated at a table on the restaurant’s patio, and when they were comfortable with iced teas, Katherine resumed the conversation. ‘Chanelle was a very pretty girl and arrogant about it. I think it’s a special time, and a dangerous one, when a young girl discovers her sex appeal. Don’t you?’
Vivian flushed slightly. ‘I guess.’
‘She had a way about her. Arrogant, but sad. She wasn’t going to let anybody tell her anything.’
‘Did she have brothers or sisters?’
Katherine shook her head as she sipped from her straw. ‘Kitty had her real young, in high school.’ She set her glass down. ‘You should know that in a small town, everybody goes to the same school and knows everybody’s business. I swear, it’s almost intimidating sometimes, knowing you can never get away from yourself. You can never change, not really. People are always reminding you who you are.’
Vivian hadn’t lived in her hometown since she moved away to college. She hadn’t ever thought of it in those terms, but she did like the anonymity of the city. ‘Were you and Kitty friends in high school?’ she asked.
‘No. She was a year back, and hung around a different crowd.’
Vivian smiled. ‘Let me guess. She was a cheerleader and you were a diligent student.’
Katherine chuckled. ‘Something like that. She never was a cheerleader, but boy, she wanted to be. She pestered the in-crowd until they had to let her in.