Page 36 of Bay of Plenty

He didn’t answer immediately, but his lips twitched as though he wanted to respond but was hesitant. I rubbed his arm to show he was safe.

“There was something else,” he said eventually. “Someone came back for Janey’s shoes early in the morning.”

“What?”I stepped in front of him.

Startled, the others looked back. I gave them a wave.

“Around two in the morning, Honey—you know, our dog—barked, and the porch light flicked on. I checked outside, and when I looked down, her shoes were still there. Next morning, they were gone.”

My hands flew up over my head in shock. “What do you think happened?”

“Whoever had come for them must have been hiding around the corner. It can’t have been Janey, because Honey wouldn’t have barked. Sarge said I might have misremembered, or itwasJaney who came back for them.”

“But why would she?”

“Exactly what I said. Then I pushed it. And Sarge said, ‘I wouldn’t go putting that about. It might look like you’re protesting too much, if you know what I mean.’”

“Wait.” I spun around and clutched his shoulder. “Was he implying what I think?”

He nodded, and I could see the tension in his face. Anger singed my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

“Oh, God. You’d lost Janey, and he says something as revolting as that?”

“That’s what people think of me anyway.” His voice was flat. “It killed my wife. I think it did.” His wife had died of breast cancer two years later. “Not only Janey’s disappearance, but the fact that people avoided me afterward.”

Oh, the poor man, such heartache. “I’m so sorry that happened,” I said. I’d thought it was because he was shy and ill at ease, which I could relate to, but maybe it was something darker. Pointing the finger at Sarge was a risk, but I sensed there was no love lost between the two men. “Sarge was either involved or covering up for someone, don’t you think?”

He stopped and stared at me. “Yes. Oh, what a relief to hear you say that. I’d always thought that, but I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

“Let’s start with that note,” I said.

I dredged back to the day before Janey disappeared. She’d sauntered up to me as I got home from school, her ponytail swinging, smelling of cigarettes and chocolate.

“Happy birthday, LaLa,” she said, using her old pet name for me. She slipped her hand into the crook of my elbow, snuggled her head onto my shoulder, and joked about her geography class that day, and I laughed. Did she want to be best friends again? We’d been best friends for years. But when we started high school, she’d joined the popular girls. I hoped she’d get sick of them. Maybeit had happened. She asked me to take a note to Snow. I opened the note.Meet me in front at midnight.

“No, Janey,” I said. “He’s too old for you.”

“What a fucking baby.” She snatched the note from me and stalked up the driveway to her house.

Mr.Saunders’s head vibrated with tension. “Snow was never going to meet her that night, of that I’m sure,” he said. “She was bothering him constantly, obsessed with him. It was driving him up the wall. We tried to stop it as she was way too young for him for a start. Snow could have got in a lot of trouble.”

Snowshouldhave been in a lot of trouble.

“Shh,” Mum said.

We’d reached the rock face. Had they heard what we’d said? I tried to study Declan’s face, but it was too dark under the cliff.

“Look up,” Mum whispered.

Lifting my head, I gasped. A quieter “Oh.”

The whole cliff face was pulsing with tiny dots of light, like fairies had poked their noses through from another world.

Mr.Saunders was breathing unevenly. Mum and Declan, on the other side of me, smiled, eyes wide, heads rolled back. Declan took my hand while we silently enjoyed the night. Something dense and locked down loosened in me. My heart brightened. It had to be the memories sparked by the glowworms. It couldn’t be Declan beside me, his thighs grazing my hips, shoulder ghosting my temple, fingers pressing warm—I couldn’t get confused about that.

After we walked home, the three of us said goodbye to Mr.Saunders at the curbside of our shared driveway.

“You being here,” Mr.Saunders whispered, pressing his eyelids with the pads of his fingers. “I feel her somehow.”

---