Chapter 2 - The Pieces Had More Than Colors
I carried Hadley out of the wrecked study before I did anything else.
Whatever Celeste had done, I was not going to question a frightened six-year-old while broken wood and shattered objects were still scattered around her feet.
I brought Hadley into the small morning room across the hall, wrapped her in one of the throws from the sofa, and called the police.
Then I called my house manager and told her Mike was missing.
By the time I returned to the study two minutes later, Celeste was gone.
Blaine was still there, sitting against the damaged bookcase and holding one hand against his chest.
“Where is she?”
He stared at me.
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“She walked out while you were with the kid.”
I glanced toward the main hallway.
Then toward the interior door Celeste had looked at.
It was slightly open now.
My stomach tightened.
I did not follow immediately.
Instead, I knelt among the pieces of Hadley’s shredded drawing.
Celeste had attacked that paper with more fury than she had shown anything else in the room.
That mattered.
So I gathered every piece I could find.
Red rectangle.
Blue bird.
Yellow moon.
A little green boat.
A purple shape that looked like a house.
Three round green things beside it.
And several blocks that looked almost like books.
Hadley appeared in the doorway behind me.
“I can fix it,” she whispered.
I looked over.
“You don’t have to come back in here.”
“I know.”
She stepped carefully around the debris and sat beside me anyway.
Together, we laid the pieces across the carpet near the broken desk.
“What is this?” I asked, pointing to a red square with a little flame coming out of the top.
“A lantern.”
“And the blue bird?”
“Heron.”
I looked at her.
“Why a heron?”
“Mike said blue bird was easier.”
“Easier than what?”
Hadley hesitated.
Then said something that changed the meaning of the drawing entirely.
“Our shelf game.”
I knew that game.
I had invented it for them.
My late wife had collected illustrated children’s books, first editions, signed copies, unusual printings. When Mike and Hadley were younger, I taught them the collection by turning each book into a color and an object.
A red lantern for The Lantern Boy.
A blue heron for The Heron at Winter Lake.
A yellow moon for Moon Over Briar Hill.
A green boat for The Little Crossing.
The children could remember a shelf faster through pictures than titles.
I looked down again.
Hadley hadn’t made a random drawing.
She had drawn my library.
“Did Mike tell you to make this?”
She nodded.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Why?”
Her small fingers moved toward the purple-roofed shape.
“He said if he wasn’t here when you came home, I had to show you.”
My chest tightened.
Mike had expected to disappear.
I pointed toward the little purple roof.
“What is that?”
Hadley shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“And these?”
Three round green shapes.
“Trees.”
“What kind?”
She thought.
“Apple trees.”
I looked at the drawing again.
Seven book symbols.
One red lantern.
One purple-roofed house beside three apple trees.
Mike had turned his little sister’s drawing into a message.
And Celeste had realized it before I did.
May you like
That was why she was shredding it.
---
