Ariel treats us like colleagues. We talk about plans and construction, and he listens to our suggestions.
“You’ll need to put an extra brace in the middle of the shelf. It’ll bend if you put anything heavy on it.”
“Right, of course. Thanks.”
He lets us work in silence. The smell of wood and glue stays in our hair for a few days. We like going to the workshop. We leave, still wearing our tool belts.
Breathlessly, Emma announces that we have visitors. The boy with the poodle is there, on Grace Street, with a teenage boy we don’t know. The boy looks us over. We’re wearing a white T-shirt with arrows on the front. The fabric is thin at the shoulders and our collarbones protrude beneath it. The boy doesn’t answer the questions we ask him. He seems lost in his thoughts. We have to repeat ourselves:
“What are you doing here? Who is he?”
“This is my brother, Cory.”
It’s hard to believe. The boy is blond and plump, while the other one has olive skin and the beginnings of a mustache. But they have the same blue eyes, it’s true. We move to close the door, but the boy blocks it with his hand.
“What are you doing? You wanted to meet my brother.”
“No. We never said that.”
The brother makes a weird face that shows one of his canines. “Dude, who are these freaks?”
He turns to go back down the steps. The boy catches him by the elbow.
“Relax, Cory. I told you, I have something to show you.”
“This thing better be worth it, Hendrick.”
His name is Hendrick, then.
“Come on,” he says.
We don’t want to follow them. But he insists.
The brother complains as we walk, hands in his pockets.
“Where do you guys know each other from?”
“We don’t know each other,” we say.
Cory rolls his eyes and turns to Hendrick.
“We swim together sometimes. They’re supergood divers!”
Cory seems impressed.
“Why are you wearing carpentry belts?” asks Hendrick, walking around us.
“To do carpentry.”
We walk down Crawford Street, not knowing where Hendrick is taking us. Cory walks in front of us lazily. We have to keep slowing down so as not to run into him. Hendrick, for his part, skips along the sidewalk and can’t stop talking.
“You should see them dive, Cory—they can jump from a handstand. And they can do all kinds of tricks.”
Cory’s eyebrows form a V. We realize Hendrick is bringing us to the vacant lot. When we finally arrive, we notice the police tape all around the silo. A giant crater has been dug. We turn to Hendrick.
“What happened?”
Cory says, “What? You don’t know? Are you from Mars or what? Everyone’s talking about it. They found the body of that little girl that was murdered, hidden in the silo!”
We lean in to see where the body was, but since it’s dusk, we can’t make out the bottom of the hole. Cory looks at the time on his phone.
“What did you want to show us, Hendrick?” he says, giving him a shove.
The boy digs around the outside of the hole and pulls out a rusty knife.
“What’s that?” asks Cory.
We understand. “It’s the murder weapon. Where did you find it?”
“There,” he says, pointing vaguely to a spot in the hole. “But I hid it here so no one finds it.”
“You went down there?” Cory cries, disgusted.
Hendrick nods.
“How did the police not find it?” we ask.
Hendrick doesn’t know what to say.
“It might be nothing—it might just be an old gardening tool.” Cory pushes his brother as he speaks. Hendrick takes a step back.
Standing in front of the hole, we start to get bored.
“What are you doing tonight?” asks Cory, turning toward us. “One of my friends is having a party, if you want to come.”
“We don’t go to parties.”
“Man, what’s wrong with you?”
“They don’t go out with middle-schoolers…” Mathilde emerges from the woods.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Cory asks angrily.
We let them argue for a moment. Mathilde holds a hand out in front of her and says sharply, “You don’t go to our school, that’s all. Vanya, are you coming?” She smiles.
We cross our arms and wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t seem to have anything else to say. She finishes by adding, “Fine, you can bring your brother, if you have to.”
We pat our pockets and lift our chin as we walk away together, leaving Hendrick and Cory behind us. We can hear them fighting even once we’ve turned the corner.
Mathilde makes a quick phone call and drags us back down the service alley of the Chinese restaurant. A man is sitting amid the garbage bags. He has a long beard and dirty hair and he’s drinking a beer from a bag, muttering words we don’t understand.
A girl opens the door this time. She’s wearing a net on her head to keep her hair in place. She greets Mathilde briefly, holding the door for her. She has to hold it with her whole arm because it’s heavy. Mathilde enters first. A greasy piece of garbage sticks to our shoe. Holding the door with one hand, we rub our foot along the ground to dislodge the garbage from our sole, but we lose hold of the heavy door and it closes. We stand in the stinking alley. We knock violently several times, calling “Vanya!” No one opens. We wear ourselves out for a while on the door, then give up. The homeless man yells something; we ignore him and leave, shoulders slumped.
In the little room, Mathilde is waiting.
“What do you want?” she asks.
“I want to fuck you.”
“I already told Daniil that I don’t do that. I’m a virgin. Where is your brother, anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he changed his mind. So what do you want?”
“Same as last time, I guess.”
We pretend to reach for
