𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐏𝐒𝐎 | ᴍɪʟʟᴀʀᴅ ɴᴜʟʟɪɴɢꜱ

𝟐𝟖] 𝐈 𝐌𝐀𝐘 𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐀𝐘 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐁𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑

Before either could throw a punch, a familiar voice said, "Hang on, Dennis, we'll get this sorted," and Martin stepped out of the crowd to wedge himself between them. "Just start by telling us whatever your kids told you," he said to my father.

Dad glared at me. "They said they were going to see friends on the other side."

"What friends?" Pitchfork demanded.

I could see this was only going to get uglier unless I did something drastic. Obviously, I couldn't tell them about the children—nor that they'd believe me anyway—so instead Jacob took a calculated risk.

"Wasnt anybody," he said, dropping his eyes in feigned shame. "They're imaginary."

"What'd he say?"

"He said his friends were imaginary," my dad repeated, sounding worried.

The farmers exchanged baffled glances.

"See?" Worm said, a flicker of hope on his face. "Kid's a bloody psycho! It had to be him!"

I laughed. "Oh please, your name is Worm."

"I never touched them," Jacob said, though no one was really listening.

"It weren't the American," said the farmer who had Worm. He gave Worm's shirt a wrench. "This one here, he's got a history. Few years back I watched him kick a lamb down a cliffside. Wouldn't of believed it if I hadn't seen it wi' me own eyes. After he done it I asked him why. To see if it could fly, he says. He's a sickie, all right."

People muttered in disgust. Worm looked uncomfortable but didn't dispute the story.

"Where's his fishmongerin' mate?" said Pitchfork. "If this one was in on it, you can bet the other one was, too." Someone said they'd seen Dylan by the harbor, and a posse was dispatched to collect him.

"What about a wolf--or a wild dog?" my dad said. "My father was killed by dogs."

"Only dogs on Cairnholm are sheepdogs," replied Knit Cap.

"And it ain't exactly in a sheepdog's nature to go about killin' sheep."

I wished my father would give it up and leave while the leaving was good, but he was on the case like Sherlock Holmes. "Just how many sheep are we talking about?" he asked.

"Five," replied the fourth farmer, a short, sour-faced man who hadn't spoken until then. "All mine. Killed right in their pen. Poor devils never even had a chance to run."

"Five sheep. How much blood do you think is in five sheep?"

"A right tubful, I shouldn't wonder," said Pitchfork.

"So wouldn't whoever did this be covered in it?"

The farmers looked at one another. They looked at me, and then at Worm. Then they shrugged and scratched their heads. "Reckon coulda been foxes," said Knit Cap.

"A whole pack of foxes, maybe," said Pitchfork doubtfully, "Dunno if the island's even got that many."

"I still say the cuts are too clean," said the one holding Worm. "Had to have been done with a knife."

"I just don't believe it," my dad replied.

"Then come see for yourself," said Knit Cap.

So as the crowd began to disperse, a small group of us followed the farmers out to the scene of the crime. We trudged over a low rise, through a nearby field, to a little brown shed with a rectangular animal pen beyond it.

We approached tentatively and peeked through the fence slats. The violence inside was almost cartoonish, like the work of some mad impressionist who painted only in red. The tramped grass was bathed in blood, as were the pen's weathered posts and the stiff white bodies of the sheep themselves, flung about in attitudes of sheepish agony.

One had tried to climb the fence and got its spindly legs caught between the slats. It hung before me at an odd angle, clam-shelled open from throat to crotch, as if it had been unzipped. I had to turn away. Others muttered and shook their heads, and someone let out a low whistle.

Worm gagged and began to cry, which was seen as an admission of guilt; the criminal who couldn't face his own crime. He was led away to be locked in Martin's museum--in what used to be the sacristy and was now the is land's makeshift jail cell--until he could be remanded to police on the mainland.

We left the farmer to ponder his slain sheep and went back to town, plodding over wet grassy hills in the gray dusk.

Back in the room, I knew was in for a Stern Dad talking-to, so I did my best to disarm him before he could start in on us.

"We lied to you, Dad, and I'm sorry."

"Yeah?" he said sarcastically, trading his wet sweater for a dry one. "That's big of you. Now which lie are we talking about? I can hardly keep track.

"The one about meeting friends. There aren't any other kids on the island. I made it up because I didn't want you to worry about us being alone over there."

"Well, I do worry, even if your doctor tells me not to.

"I know you do."

"So what about these imaginary friends? Does Golan know About this?"

Jake shook his head. "That was a lie, too. I just had to get those guys off my back."

Dad folded his arms, not sure what to believe. "Really."

"Better to have them think I'm a little eccentric than a sheep killer, right?"

I took a seat at the table. Dad looked down at me for a long moment, and I wasn't sure if he trusted me or not. Then he went to the sink and splashed water on his face. When he'd toweled off and limed around again, he seemed to have decided it was a lot less trouble to trust me.

"You sure we don't need to call Dr. Golan again?" he asked. "Have a nice long talk?"

"If you want to. But I'm okay."

"This is exactly why I didn't want you hanging out with those other guys," he said, because he needed to close with something sufficiently parental for it to count as a proper talking-to.

"You were right about them, Dad," I said, though secretly I couldn't believe either of them was capable of it. Worm and Dylan talked tough, but that was all.

Dad sat down across from Jacob. He looked tired. "I'd still like to know how someone manages to get a sunburn on a day like this."

Right. The sunburn. "Guess I'm pretty sensitive," Jacob said.

"You can say that again," he said dryly.

He let us go, and we went to take a shower and I thought about Eloise. Then I brushed my teeth and thought about Eloise and washed my face and thought about Eloise.

I was still thinking when I heard my father go to bed in the next room, and still looking when the gennies kicked off and my lamp went out, and when there was nothing anywhere but her figure in my head, I lay there in the dark, still thinking.