Rose squatted down next to Laura to see what was in her hands. It was an old-fashioned doll, with a porcelain face and hands and a cloth body. It was nothing like any of Laura’s other toys. Weirdly, she noticed that it looked just like Laura, big brown eyes, brown hair in a bob, cut sharply at its jaw.
“Why’d you cut its hair? You’ve ruined it,” she said.
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Did not!”
“You did. You cut its hair so it would look like yours.”
“I didn’t! The person who gave it to me did it. They left it outside the front door. It’s a present for me.”
Rose touched the soft skin under Laura’s chin so that she would look up.
“Are you fibbing? I won’t be mad.”
Laura held the doll in front of her and put on the high-pitched voice again. “Posey’s just jealous. You’re all mine!”
A strange feeling crept inside Rose then, a sense of something not being right. She considered taking the doll away, but Laura looked so content playing with her tiny twin. She was being stupid, she decided; of course someone didn’t leave it for Laura. She must have borrowed it from another girl at school.
Leaving Laura to play, Rose left the house. She pulled the flywire screen door shut behind her and poked her finger through the broken netting to snip the lock closed. The thing was pointless. She remembered when she and her mother had installed it, years ago now, for security. These days it wouldn’t have a hope of keeping intruders out; it would barely even protect them against blowflies.
The door was just like everything else in her life, in this town. After the car factory shut down, Colmstock had quickly lost its sense of purpose. Once, it had been pleasant. The largest town in the area and right off the Melton Highway, it was considered a nice place to stop off for a night on your way to the city. Small enough to have a strong community, but big enough that you could walk down the street without knowing every person you passed.
These days everything in Colmstock was broken and ugly. People weren’t so friendly anymore. Too many residents had swapped a social drink or two for a meth habit. Crime rates were up, employment was down and yet the population stayed the same. It was as though everyone felt a sense of loyalty to the place. Well, Rose certainly didn’t. She was getting out of here. Even the idea of it made her smile. The idea that this wouldn’t be where she lived anymore, that she could have a whole different life. Realizing that her pace was slowing, she forced herself to stop dreaming. Her new life would start soon, but right now she was late for work.
Rose headed for Union Street, waving a hand over her face to keep away the flies. Even though the sun was up, she didn’t feel safe walking alone. There was a much quicker route, but it meant going past the fossickers. She wouldn’t do that no matter what time of day it was, so she had to circle around the long way. Slipping her phone out of her pocket, she refreshed her email again. Nothing. Her heart sank. They’d said they would get back to her today. She couldn’t bear to wait any longer. She had never been so ready for anything.
Since she was a kid, she’d always wanted to be a journalist. There had been a lot of setbacks, the local paper The Colmstock Echo closing being the worst one. Then she’d got an email saying she had been long-listed for a cadetship at the Sage Review, a national paper. A week later she was told she had been short-listed. Still, she hadn’t let herself get too excited. It was just too good, too amazing to happen to her. Then just eight days ago she was down to the final two. It was just her and one other hopeful person out there refreshing their emails today.
Her friend Mia was certain she would get it. Rose had laughed and made some joke about whether she’d seen it in her crystal ball, but really, she had believed her. In her gut, Rose knew she was going to get the cadetship, for the simple fact that no one could want it as much as she did. It just wasn’t possible.
She hurried past the lake, which was surrounded by dry knee-high grass, home to snakes and mosquitoes. It reeked of stagnant water. Next to it, the bare frame of a swing set stood, taken over by an insistent flowering weed. Someone had cut down the swings a few years back, leaving the skeleton of the frame. She wondered if the swings had been rehung in the backyard of one of the nearby houses or if they had been destroyed just for the entertainment of a few kids.
Rose turned away and picked up her pace, the rubber soles of her new shoes slapping against the sticky bitumen, trying not to remember how, once upon a time, when the water was still blue, she’d gone for picnics by that lake with her mother. Her mother, who had sat mute next to her new husband Rob James when he’d told Rose it was time for her to move out. It was okay, since the cadetship was in the city and board was part of the deal, but still, it had hurt.
She crossed over toward Union Street, careful to hop over the cane toad that was squished into the road. Here, people would swerve onto the wrong side in order to squash one. They’d stay there, flat as pancakes, covered in ants, until they turned stiff and hard like dry leather in the baking sun.
The main street of Colmstock was three blocks long. There was only one set of traffic lights and, farther up, a pedestrian crossing in front of the squat redbrick church. Not far from where she stood was a pub. She could see the dog racing on screens through one of its grimy windows, which were often splattered with blood from bar fights by the time it closed. There was the Chinese takeaway joint with its loud red lit-up sign, nestled between the Indian restaurant and the antiques store, which had both closed years ago.
Farther down was the primary school and the Colmstock council building. From where Rose stood, waiting for the lights to change so she could cross the street, she could almost see the burned-out courthouse. It stood between the library, which had escaped the blaze, and the grocery store, which hadn’t. In front of the steps to the courthouse was the memorial to the kid who had died there, Ben Riley. The picture of him was fading, bleached by the constant sun. The building was cordoned off with plastic tape. Barricades should have been put up, but it hadn’t happened yet.
Rose stared at the charred remains. Now that all the files inside the courthouse were ashes and the computers were melted blocks of plastic and wire, did that mean the scheduled trials wouldn’t go ahead? Did it mean that people who would have been criminals no longer were? Would the law be put on hold until they rebuilt the place? Even from here, she could smell it. The burned wood, bricks and plastic frying in the sun. It had been three weeks and the smell hadn’t gone away. Maybe that was just how Colmstock would smell from now on.
Her pocket buzzed. Forcing herself to keep her hand steady, she took out her phone. She half expected it to be some dumb text message from Mia or a spam email. But it wasn’t. She opened the Sage Review’s email, her mouth already tugging at the corners, ready to grin, ready to hold in a scream of excitement.
Dear Ms. Blakey,
Thank you for applying for the Sage Review Cadet Program. Unfortunately
Rose didn’t read the rest. She couldn’t.
Her mouth hadn’t caught up yet. She was still smiling a strange hollow smile as she crossed the road to Eamon’s Tavern Hotel.
Like many of the businesses on Union Street, Eamon’s Tavern
