Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Random House
Canada
eyes, brown and large, already set slightly too far apart—a
little odd, but not unattractive, perhaps the best feature in
what she hopes could be called a heart-shaped face. Shoulder-
length hair lies flat and brown against her skull. She would
cut it short and be done with it, but she needs it to cover her
ears. No one’s ever told her they’re too small—she reached
that conclusion all on her own. They feel almost vestigial, like
a dewclaw, or the ancestral nub of a tail.
Reaching for a towel, she thinks again of the mouse. Its
ears are in fine proportion, sweet little petals folded neatly
against its head, designed to lift a thousand times a day in
alarm. There must be a hole behind the dresser—it shot back
there and didn’t show itself again. She should deal with it,
find the breach and block it up.
Back in her bedroom, she folds open the closet door. Her
work clothes take up half the space: short- and long-sleeved
duty shirts, three pair basic cargo pants, two pair tactical
pants, patrol jacket, fleece—all in peaceful forest green. She’s
only been off duty for three weeks and already she’s starting to
feel as though the federal wildlife officer uniform belongs to
somebody else. As though she’d be committing an offence—
personating a peace officer—if she tried any of it on.
She touches a summer-weight sleeve, laying a finger to
the crest. She can remember exactly how it felt the first time
she sported that blue and gold insignia on her arm—the
mixture of pride and relief. And now, only five years on the
job and she’s living off a store of sick days, unsure when she’ll
feel steady enough to go back. It’s one thing being off work
because you’ve caught a nasty bug, quite another because
you’ve broken down on duty, sat down on the floor and buried
onto the counter, laying out the bait without the trap.
Childish. She’ll have to stop.
Helmet and keys in hand, she eases shut her apartment
door and takes the stairs softly. James and Annie won’t be up
for at least a couple of hours.
It’s still dark out, porch lights and street lamps pitted
against the last of the night. The maple trees stand shrouded.
Within the hour they’ll ring with the multi-toned strains of
spring migration, untold species winging through.
Edal unlocks her bike from the porch railing and carries
it down to the front walk. There won’t be much traffic yet.
She’ll cycle south to Lakeshore Boulevard then east to the
Beaches, ride hard along the lakefront path.
She feels better the moment she’s on the bike, as though
she’s peeled away from her miserable self and left it standing.
Partway down the block, she flushes a pale tomcat from
beneath a parked car. It crosses the street in low, swinging
strides, pausing to turn its broad face her way.
Wheeling onto Carlaw, she glides past ranks of tall brick
homes that face the darkened park, young professionals and
their babies interspersed among what’s left of the neighbour-
hood’s older families—mostly working class, mostly Greek.
Edal thumbs her bell just to hear it. The land slopes gently,
guiding her down to lake level as though she were one of the
city’s hidden streams.
At Langley, she changes her mind: she won’t go east, but
west instead, through the city’s concrete heart. It’s been
months, maybe even a year, since she threaded a path through
those glittering towers—not an experience she generally seeks,
but this morning the idea of deserted glass valleys appeals.
From there she can cut down to the lakefront if the mood takes
her, or carry on westward, maybe even as far as High Park.
Langley ends at Broadview, where Edal bumps across street-
car tracks and jumps the curb to ride overland. The grass is
springy beneath her wheels. She rounds the looming statue of
Sun Yat-sen and enters the deeper dark of the trees. The long
bank of the Don Valley drops away. Giving gravity its head,
she splays her legs wide and coasts, gathering speed.
She joins the path near the mouth of the Riverdale Foot-
bridge—a quaint name for an arcing pedestrian overpass, all
concrete and steel. Pedaling hard through the narrows where
the bushes close in, she pumps up over the rise.
Halfway across the bridge, Edal brakes and slows. Balanced
against the railing, she twists to look down on the slate glimmer
of the Don River. Clumps of growth overhang the banks;
a fallen tree rakes the current, waving a snagged plastic bag.
The river has been straightened here, forced into the lesser
form of a canal. The lit-up parkway follows one unnatural
bank, the railway and Bayview Avenue the other. The tracks lie
quiet, but already cars are speeding into and out of town, some
seeking space, others forming small processions, nose to tail.
Edal looks north, her gaze swimming against the flow.
Not far upstream—perhaps two city blocks—the Don
begins to meander as a river should. Left then right, in wide,
lazy turns. The roads keep their distance. Darkness opens like
a rift between them, home to marshland, grassland, woods.
Given half a chance, the land would revert, clawing back
through time, tearing holes in the city’s thin coat.
A path winds through the shadows, and she spots a soli-
tary runner, visible between the trees. She can’t make out his
face, only that he’s tall and thin, with a dark mop of curls. He
pelts down the path as if something’s after him, though as far
as she can make out, he’s alone. Either way, he’s crazy. Edal’s
trained in personal protective tactics, and she would never
run alone down there in the dark.
She hears a distant rumble and lifts her head. Farther up
the valley, a subway train crosses the barred undercarriage
of the viaduct. On the deck above, cars dart and flash
between the netted cables of the bridge’s span. Netted to
dissuade jumpers. Edal looks down into the sluggish, reflect-
ive river, and wonders at its depth.
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The hawk dips its bright crown and tears into a mouse.
The sun is warm; it rests like an open hand at the back of Guy’s
neck. He stands and watches. After a moment he remembers
the sandwich and eats.
As a rule, Lily coasts the last half block to the dead-end foot
of Mt. Stephen Street, but this morning she rides hard to the
last, jams her boot down on the pedal brake and skids to a
halt. Billy gallops past and turns a sloppy U to come panting
to her side. She takes pains to prop the bike against the fence,
hooking a handlebar through the chain-link so the front
wheel won’t fold, taking the old paper-boy basket along for
the fall. Its cardboard banana box holds precious cargo, a col-
lection of rustling paper bags.
At the gate, she lays a hand on the painted plywood sign.
howell auto wreckers since 1966. The key hangs on a
bootlace around her neck. She fishes it out and jams it into the
padlock with nervous hands. It’s stupid. She must’ve looked
over her shoulder a hundred times during the ride—there’s no
chance the woman followed them all this way.
She’s careful not to bump the bike on her way through
the gate. Billy follows, nuzzling the small of her back.
“Hold your horses.” She shoves the gate closed and
fumbles again with the lock. He drops into a sit, releasing a
soft, impatient whine.
“Okay, go on.”
Billy whirls, his blunt head trading places with his behind.
He lopes across the yard, past the two trucks sitting idle, the
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“Nope.”
“Any live ones?”
“A few.”
“Good stuff. Bring ’em in and we’ll take a look.” He leads
the way, waiting while she leans the bike against the house
and lifts the box free. “You want a hand?”
“I’m okay.”
He holds the screen door open for her and Billy, leaves a
gap before stepping in after them and letting the door slap
shut on its spring. She likes the weird little house. It’s more
like an oversized trailer than anything, the kitchen flanked by
Guy’s bedroom and the can on one side and Stephen’s room
on the other. No denying the hum of the parkway, but she’s
used to that after the last couple of months; she’d have trouble
getting to sleep without it.
Standing in the bright patch where the door lets in the
morning, she watches Guy open the Living section of the Star
and spread it out. She’s fond of the table too. It’s the old fifties
kind, with shiny metal legs and a scrubbed pink surface that
used to be red. He always leaves the centre leaf in, even though
the edges don’t quite meet up.
“Let’s see what you’ve got.”
He stands at the other end of the table with his arms
folded, and for a moment Lily feels like she’s in school—that
same sick dread. Only Billy’s here with her, not chained up
waiting at home. Not nosing for crumbs around the kitchen
counter like any other dog, either, but right beside her, leaned
up against her leg. She sets the box down and fishes out the
Tim Hortons bag. See to the living first.
The little bird lies motionless in her palm, but she can feel
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15
Edal doesn’t ask herself why she followed the girl and her
massive dog back to Howell Auto Wreckers—or why she lingers
after they’ve gone inside. Instead, she wonders about the girl.
There are people who comb the business district during migra-
tion season, many of them members of FLAP, an organization
formed to draw attention to the deadly lure of the tower lights—
but the girl doesn’t look the type to be a member of anything.
And what about the man? Presumably a Howell or an
employee of one, but who is he to the girl? A boyfriend?
Unlikely. Edal saw no hint of the loaded current that runs
between lovers’ bodies. In any case, he’s Edal’s age, or near
enough—late twenties at least—and the girl can’t be more
than sixteen. Older brother? If so, there’s no resemblance. The
girl is rail-thin, fine-featured, her skin watery, a shade of whey.
Her hacked-off hair could be any colour under the dye, but
Edal doubts it was ever a match for his.
She’s never seen that shade of red on a human, dark as an
old penny with new-penny flashes when he moved. Only
slightly shorter than her own hair, it feathers back from his
broad-boned face—a style common where Edal comes from.
He wears a green and black Mack shirt, a relic of sorts in the
city. She had a red one when she was growing up. Sometimes
she slept in it—soft as a chamois, smelling of herself.
Definitely not a brother. A friend, then. Edal can only
guess at what they’re up to, now that they’ve gone inside. Still,
there’s plenty to observe.
The wrecking yard sits on a deep lot that butts up against
the Dundas Street on-ramp. Three-metre-high fencing lined
with banks of crushed cars. Just inside the gate, a flat black
pickup stands beside a baby blue tow truck long past its prime.
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“You don’t have to leave those up, you know,” Guy says.
“We could find another spot for them, let you put up some
stuff of your own.”
Stephen flashes on a pair of prints on his parents’ living
room wall: an airbrushed man morphing into an eagle, his
hazy mate in the process of becoming a wolf. His-and-hers
shamans, both plainly Caucasian, though rendered in sooth-
ing, earthy tones. If memory serves, there were no actual
photos around while he was growing up. Grade after grade,
he was the only kid who didn’t order any school portraits—
not even the poor-family package of one five-by-eight and
four handy wallet-size. Photos are about holding on to the past,
Mica told him when he asked. Your father’s right, Ariel added.
Life happens in the now.
“It’s okay,” Stephen says. “I like having them there.”
“Your call.”
“Unless you want them in your room.”
“No, no.”
“You should have the bigger room anyway. I feel like
I’m—”
“Hey, I told you, I’ve been sleeping in that room since my
bed had rails around it. I doubt I could sleep anywhere else.”
Guy turns the carton upside down as though testing the seal.
“Besides, you’ve been here, what, a year and a half now?”
“Just about. Since December 2006.”
“Okay, then, I’d say this is your room.” He stands. “I’ve
got Ted Price coming to pick up a load of parts around noon.
Maybe you could get started stripping that Vette.”
“Sounds good.”
“Coffee first, though.”
21
Edal stands in the shower, her eyes shut tight. The needling
water draws her out of her mind and into her tingling skin—
until the needles begin to turn cold. She has yet to soap up or
lather her hair; she’s just been standing here, emptying the hot
water tank. It doesn’t matter. She can shower again later, or not.
She steps out of the enclosure and sees herself in the
divided glass. Her nose is swollen, but only slightly. No sign
of bruising. She presses it lightly and feels only tenderness,
nothing sharp. Her sweatshirt lies soaking in the sink, cold
water for blood, as every girl learns. She can’t remember being
told—it’s not the sort of thing her mother would’ve
managed—so she must have read it somewhere. Harmon’s
Household Hints or Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. The
sweatshirt looks bloated. It looks like something tragic, a baby
elephant’s ear.
She confiscated an elephant-skin drum once. It’s still
lying in the evidence room at HQ, alongside an umbrella
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damp towel about her, she pads out to the kitchen, opens
several cupboards, stares down into the steely sink. A single
mouse turd—a dark, seed-shaped offering—curves like a
comma beside the taps. She lets it lie.
The clock on the stove shocks her. It can’t possibly be
only 8:38. It seems as though a week has passed since she
woke to meet the mouse’s gaze, and yet the day in all its emp-
tiness remains.
It’s full morning by the time Lily returns to the valley floor. No
sign of the nightlife beyond the usual fresh graffiti tags and
empties, the odd abandoned shoe. Somebody’s been stapling up
yellow flyers—probably some pervert or religious freak. She
doesn’t bother to take a close look. Day-timers pass Billy and
her on the footpath—runners and cyclists, people who keep
their dogs on leads. She looks through them until she’s safely by.
Her pockets are alive. Seven survivors this morning, the
whole vest bursting with birds. She waits until they’re north
of the viaduct before wading out into the weeds; might as well
get clear of the most obvious obstacle.
The first bag comes from the right cargo pocket. The
ovenbird is lively, definitely ready to try. Lily parts the paper
and reaches in, closing her fingers around its breast. The peck
it gives her scarcely registers, her hands drunk with the silken
overlap of its feathers, the fluttering protest of its heart.
As always, there comes the moment of doubt as she
cradles the bird in her closed hands. “Ready?” she whispers
through her fingers. “One, two, three! ”
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
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