Blood Red

The idea to swap a modern blade for an antique one had been inspired by a visit to the Mundy’s Landing Historical Society.

Just such a blade had been a prominent part of the special exhibit celebrating the Sleeping Beauty murders. Some, including local hypocrites who laugh all the way to the bank, might argue that celebrate is the wrong word. But even they can’t ignore that the annual festival incites a carnival atmosphere. Last year, a vendor was selling T--shirts imprinted with the word Mundypalooza and an illustration of the suspected murder weapon: a folding blade like the one on exhibit and the one Casey purchased at a nearby flea market.

I wouldn’t buy a tacky T--shirt, though. That’s for damned sure. Some -people just don’t know where to draw the line.

Casey is pleased to discover that the strop works equally well to sharpen scissors. Several pulls on one blade, several pulls on the other, and the pair is good as new.

Casey places it beside the waiting scrapbook on the table and stands holding the strop, thoughtfully stroking the length of it as if caressing the long hair of a loved one.

Julia Sexton was supposed to be the last stand--in.

But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared, just in case . . .

Casey stands and walks over to the kitchenette, where the straight razor still sits in the drying rack.

It was gratifying, yesterday, to watch blood that had dried an ugly shade of brown become vivid red again as it ran into the white porcelain sink, though it gradually diluted to a watery pink. After the last drop had swirled down the drain, Casey filled the sink with steaming bleach water and soaked the razor for a while, obliterating every trace of blood and human DNA.

Now it’s ready to go again. All it needs is the painstakingly sharpened edge that offers not the slightest bit of resistance, cutting through skin and tendons and muscle like gossamer strands of hair.

Marching her fourth--graders through the quiet halls of the elementary school on Monday morning, Rowan punctuates yet another shush with the phrase she wearily uses all day, every day: -“People, please!”

Wriggly and chatty thanks to the season’s first snowfall and a rousing game of crab walk soccer in gym class, all but a few perpetually obedient kids ignore her.

Most of the doors that line the corridor are propped open, thanks to the school’s ancient boilers necessarily transforming some classrooms into saunas in order to keep others from becoming walk--in freezers. The issue dates back to Rowan’s childhood. How well she remembers being held captive at her desk, distracted by her more fortunate schoolmates who had been temporarily sprung from their own stuffy classrooms. Her own fourth--grade teacher, Mrs. Duncan, would relish the irony that she’s become the person wearily dishing out the -people, pleases.

“Ms. Mundy, Billy touched me again,” Amanda Hicks whines as they enter the stairwell, where their echoes bounce off beige tile.

“It was an accident! I couldn’t help it.”

“Billy, please keep your hands to yourself,” she says wearily, biting her tongue to keep from calling Amanda a tattletale.

“But she stopped walking on purpose so that I would crash into her!”

Rowan doesn’t doubt it, but she didn’t witness the incident and she ignores the accusation. Any reprimand to Amanda would guarantee another phone call from her mother, and one conversation with Bari Hicks is more than enough in one day. While the class was in the gym, she spent fifteen minutes on the phone explaining the logistics of this week’s field trip to the local historical society, which Bari’s chaperoning.

She doesn’t see why she has to ride the bus over with the group, because buses are loud and bouncy and make her queasy.

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