Core Exercise 3

 

Josefina pulled out the pack of Sweet Aftons from her coat pocket and helped herself to a stale fag, lighting it as she leaned back on the surviving wall of the stone shack. It tasted awful, of course. Spending a month or two in the teacher’s desk drawer would only ever turn an opened packet bitter and flat. But Josefina wasn’t feeling picky right now. A fag was a fag.

Josefina kept an eye on her friend as she smoked. Del meanwhile crouched herself to the forest floor and sifted her fingertips above the well-trodden earth as if searching for a pattern, paying no attention to the dirt that brushed her long sleeves. But she wasn’t humming to herself as she usually did. Without Del’s song the air was still, and the spruce forest surrounding them and the ruined shack became too quiet for Josefina’s liking, so she spoke first.

'You last saw Trevor here on Friday evening, Del?’

Del answered without looking up as she felt around the carpet of moss and needles.

‘That’s right, I told his sister Cathy I’d be here by the shack that night. Because I wanted to say sorry for what happened at school and all that.’

Josefina shook her head.

‘That wasn’t your fault, Del. So did Trevor say anything out of the ordinary? Like if he was going somewhere else the next day?’

‘No, he didn’t say he was going anywhere. But he did mention seeing another boy on the way here, though he didn’t get a look their face before he vanished. I didn’t see the boy myself.’

‘A boy? You mean Leech? Or what’s his name, Gerry? Those langers?’

Del stood up and brushed the soil off her knees and turned to face Josefina, though she averted her gaze.

‘No, he said it was a stranger. A boy around his age standing still on the path. He had his back to Trevor and didn’t say a word when spoken to. Then he disappeared when Trevor looked away for a second.’

Josefina scoffed and stubbed out her fag end on the overgrown windowsill behind her, then pocketed the stub and turned back to Del.

‘I can tell you Trevor sure as hell didn’t say anything about that to me yesterday. He was in a good mood for some reason and looking forward to seeing you again. Didn’t mention meeting any weird fellas in the woods. What were you even looking for in the dirt anyway, Del?’

Josefina then stood up from the shack wall.

‘I’m not looking for anything, Jo. I’m trying to remember Friday night as it happened. Like how you’d retrace your steps when you can’t find your wallet.’

With one hand Del pointed to her feet and with her other she pointed to an empty space a meter away.

‘We were both standing right here by the shack that night. Trevor mentioned the strange boy. I said sorry for being too upset to notice his help. We talked some more. Then it happened.’

Del walked a few feet away and pointed to another spot in the surrounding tree line.

‘We both saw a person in a raincoat in the distance. Couldn’t see their face. It was close to dark and they were far away, but we heard a rattling sound before we caught sight of them.

Josefina butted in.

‘Del, are you telling me-’

But Del continued.

‘It’s gone now. But over there was a scarecrow made out of sheep bones. It looked like a dead man with horns from afar. Whoever’s hanging them up is doing it at dawn or just before dark. They’re not going to use a torch because that would attract attention, now that everyone in the village has caught on.’

A frustrated Josefina stepped closer to Del, not noticing her own grip tighten on her packet of Sweet Aftons .

‘Jesus Christ, Delilah. Why didn’t you mention that earlier?’

Del’s voice broke when she answered and her now wet dark eyes locked onto Josefina’s.

‘Because the scarecrow isn’t important, Jo.’

‘What?’ was all Josefina could eke out.

‘When Trevor came up close to the scarecrow he poked at it with a screwdriver he pulled out of his pocket. He didn’t pick up a stick or use anything else off the ground to do the job. No, it was a screwdriver. I saw him hold it and I know what it looks like. It’s got a blue-green handle made of plastic, what do they call the colour?’

‘Turquoise?’

‘Yeah. That’s it. I could make it out despite the poor light that evening, so I’d know it on sight.’

Josefina massaged her forehead with her hand as she took this all in. She dropped the crushed packet to her feet, forgotten.

‘Delilah, I don’t understand where you’re going with this. What does it matter that Trevor was holding a green or blue screwdriver? He’s been missing for a day now. I saw him yesterday morning after you spoke to him the night before. We were both talking shite on the bench outside Graham’s and then that English fella asked us a few questions about the village. Nobody else has seen Trevor since. So why is the screwdriver more interesting than that fucking evil scarecrow you saw?’

Del’s chest rose with every breath, getting deeper.

‘The thing is, Jo, I saw Trevor two nights ago holding his screwdriver. He went missing before noon yesterday. But then I saw someone, from outside Trevor’s family, holding that same screwdriver today.’

Only now did Josefina realise they were both shaking. The vast forest around them was now too small and suffocating. Del wiped her eyes with her long, dirtied sleeve. Seldom did she ever make eye contact for long, but now Josefina could only wish her friend would turn her stare away.

‘Jo, I don’t why I’m coming to this idea because it shouldn’t make any sense. But there’s no other way to explain it after what I’ve seen. Jo, I think Trevor’s been murdered.’