Mad Hope Read Free Page B

the deepest drawer of her self, but Alana had already trapped and tidied the story of it in her head thousands of times. There was an unstated currency in these happenings; the value would be in the timing of the revelation, the payoff would be in the exact spin she put on the thing.
    Susanna
    In order to find all the pertinent information, Susanna knew it would be necessary to return to the scene of the crime. ‘The Return,’ she said to Sunny, who licked her wrist. She decided to take the dog with her for protection. It could be the murderer had an accomplice, lurking. She gathered some supplies: a magnifying glass from her science set, a plastic bag to collect evidence, an apple for provisions, another plastic bag for Sunny’s poop. Then she hooked the dog on to his leash, closed and locked the front door with her key, and began to walk up the street, stopping to let Sunny sniff and snoop in other people’s gardens. Susanna recognized the shape of each fading flower bed, the particular means the cracks in the sidewalk had for accommodating crabgrass and dandelions.
    It was strange how well she knew her way around here, how everything came to her automatically, like her heart knowing how to pump, and when. It was a kind of memory, she thought, like the monarch’s. Monarchs, who flitted around in the backyard in August, settling on blossoms to feed, then swooping and flirting. They were better than a whole circus. But this was not the most amazing thing. When it was time – how did they know? – the whole lot of them began a journey south, across the border, through the States, alighting on a few hilltops in Mexico. There, masses of them bent tree boughs with their weight. It took a long time, months, for them to get there, surfing updrafts of warm air, but if they got tired and died, it didn’t matter, their sons and daughters had the maps in their minds’ eyes; it was a memory that was inherited. Susanna has seen pictures of them clustered around Mexican tree trunks. This was all it took – one giant flapping, delicate creature – to prove how very little we know of the world. And if whole troops of scientists could not solve the mystery of the monarch, how could Susanna discover the depths of a stranger’s soul?
    What would ever make you so angry you’d want to kill your very own mother? ‘Your own flesh and blood!’ she said, then pinched some skin on her forearm to reinforce the idea. Monarchs could avoid most predators because of a poison in their bodies that birds and frogs, animals with backbones, could not stomach – cardiac glycosides. People were not always so lucky.
    Sunny began to pull at his leash. Squirrels , he barked. They had reached the park’s outer edge, and he wanted to run. But Susanna had other plans. ‘C’mon, Sunny,’ she said, ‘we’re going to check out the makeshift grave.’ She tugged him gently. But then something stopped her; when she considered the grave, the thud as the body fell, all her objectivity was supplanted by a terrible billowing sensation in her chest. It was as if her breath had lost its way, as though everything her body ever knew had evaporated. She cut through the parking lot and spotted an old picnic table next to some bushes. ‘I think we need to sit down,’ she said to Sunny, who didn’t agree, but was beholden. Seated, she bent over and put her head between her knees. Under the bench was a Mars bar wrapper and some pine needles, which was peculiar, since there were no pine trees nearby. Susanna sighed. Then she noticed one of the pine needles was moving. An ant was carrying it! The source of the pine needles was metres away, but the ants were determined to make a nest here, under the table. Incredible!
    She remembered something then, from the day in question, although it would not be worth any reward. It was her mother’s voice. (Then the three of them had been at the