The drive out to the land was long and arduous and that had nothing to do with the ride itself over winding hill wasting roads, but the emotional climate and the gravity of a recent death that ran in the dust the wheels dug up and threw into the mid-morning light of the day behind. Her Mother had chosen not to come so Perry had taken the ride herself, with the insistence of her cousin, Roy, who had driven the first leg before letting Perry have her way with the gears and speed. What he had done in two hours she had done in three quarters of one.

Silence threaded the car until the doors opened and they both sucked air and hauled themselves out to look history in its smug eye. The house was falling apart by no fault of their Uncle's, and was merely a silhouette of boards dying without any grace left in tact. Perry wrapped a hand around either hip and sat back against the driver's side, surveying the scene: the rusted swing-set out front that she had savored afternoons of summer within, with Roy in fact, and the myriad other children that wove in and out of their lives. Where she had had her first kiss and felt the inklings of that most secret, that most infallible knowing that she had glimpsed fleetingly.

"Do you remember us here as kids?", came Roys' hoarse voice, interjecting her thoughts like a foghorn over a cloudy, silent bay. She looked to him in the glare of approaching midday and nodded. But she didn't say a word.

"Heh. So do I. Funny how time passes. We always know these things are gonna happen and they happen and we're not ready."

He walked over to try the sturdiness of a fence paling, which was giving way at the mere nearness of his shadow. "What do you mean by that?", she sung out, crossing towards the overgrown thatches of the porch. With the side of a fist she wiped down the glass and cupped her hands over her eyes to peer through the murky window inside at the recliner, lounge and footstool, the brass telescope that had obliged them the corners of the universe , the brilliance of shooting stars.

A board creaked as he stepped up and leaned to a beam. "I don't know. Just that we all knew how sick he was, figure we'd expect it."

Perry stepped back and looked hard at his reflection, before turning around and rifling a hand back and down her hair, shocked at the lack of bare skin at her nape and the length of her hair these days. Time for a trim.

"I don't think it's about being ready."

Roy shrugged and changed course, veering sharply away. "What do you think you're gonna do to it." He flicked ice-silver-blue eyes over the yard. "I'll help."

"I'm not ready to think about that either. I gotta think."

Roy smiled a bit and moved to the door to try the handle. "Better think quick."

"It's not about being ready", she repeated, and realised she was only trying to convince herself of it. The handle clicked, groaned and Roy disappeared. Perry hesitated, then followed. The future was not always bright, but it was usually brighter than the past.

OUT OF MILK, BE BACK SOON..

Roy

The bronze rocket magnet held the note in place on the battered fridge. They had agreed he would cook pancakes in the morning and she would handle dinner. Perry was dubious about Roy's culinary prowess, but his morning fare had never disappointed. He had a knack for frying bacon up just the right way, for the perfect pancake, not unlike their Arnie. Arnie...

Her eyes trailed over a freckled shoulder to the photographs he had always kept above the fireplace, near the single weathered mantle, and on the striped buttercream-yellow wall over by the door. She saw their childhood magnified in his personal gallery. It brought her a smile and very quickly took it away. The telltale jingle of the rustic bells above the front door broke that reverie too. There was Roy, bright and burly.

"You're awake."

"Yes, yes I am", she quipped, draping herself across the table to steal the paper beneath his arm. As he rounded the table for the formica countertop she settled back to leisurely peruse the headlines. In her periphery she saw the two travel packs he was putting down, but what crinkled in her hands begged the attention more.

"Page four" he advised as he put down fresh juice, chocolate drops, raspberry jam, flour, milk...

Her canny finger had already found the page and so had her eyes.

"You're kidding me."

"No, Song, I don't think those reporters can do that. It's the news remember, it's always true", he cajoled with a bitter edge to his voice..

LOCAL FARMER ARNIE HINKLER DEAD, SUSPECTED FOUL PLAY

Calmly she rolled the paper up. "But if they knew I was getting the lot, why would....I...Mom' I...."

Arnie Hinkler, of Crescent Hill, was found suffocated to death early Sunday morning...

Lost for words.

At this stage, authorities are treating the death as suspicious...

Should she trust her eyes"

A well respected man in the community

Roy was transferring more goods from the hemp grocery bag into the packs.

.."He was wealthy but you wouldn't know it", shared Crescent Hill resident Phil Hart...

Since when was her family playing Cluedo' And...

"What are you doing?" She laid her eyes on her careful moving cousin, trying to conceal his panic.

"Breakfast, and then we're getting your rich a*s out of here."

Perry felt grief rise like a lukewarm chill. The paper fell to the checkered linoleum floor. Suddenly the world was wide and unwelcome and fraught with a kind of desolation.

This wasn't happening.

"This is your ticket, Lovesong; you're just gonna have to take the ride."

Oil spat as it hit the pan. Pure, white-hot fright sizzled through her.

Laughs Hotel was everything bar its name, though kitsch had always endeared and given her private smiles, with its mystique imploring something in her. Usually. Given the past day her affinities for hobo clowns, clown figurines and whacky, road-side attractions were dulled. Roy gave her an inquiring eye and a benign, glancing smile to the Check In attendant, Leanne, as per her name-tag; a scratch of a woman with two giant, invasive eyes and a pair of hands that resembled cleavers. "Ya want separate rooms?"

Cash was handed over.

"One will do, thank you? Roy said civilly, and the scratch gave them another invasive stare. It was a hundred more than rate; he was paying for discretion. Roy looked shifty and it wasn't helping to abate her curiosity. "One, thank you?, he repeated, and she finally looked down, her red perm trembling, and took out one large, tacky-pink card in dirty exchange. "One for you both, then", she dragged that last word a few miles and was still staring as they rolled down the dismal, flickering light of the hall.

Their room was a floor up. The carpet was Memphis-neon red with veins of solid, striking green, bringing to mind a vomited Christmas. "What the f*ck was up with her", Perry hissed as a motorcycle thundered outside on the blacktop. Her cousin chuckled. Laughter had never felt so good. Maybe the hotel wasn't lying...

Inside, lights on, walls were the used pink of a whore's lipstick, unlike the Mattel keycard. Vintage paintings of clowns none too friendly sneered back from crooked frames. The curtains and carpet were an austere, steel shade and the fan was going. Perry flopped onto her bed and sunk into it until the thin mattress protruded its springs. "I'd complain about the bed but that'd mean seeing Leanne again."

"Aw, but she liked us, don't you think?" Roy was taking off his shoes, lending his weight to the miserable King. "We have a bath, at least."

"I call it. You can shower for as long as you like the morning and I swear I won't bang the door down."

"Deal."



They quietly unpacked. Flicking the lid of her shampoo on the way to the bathroom, she breathed in the girly, fresh smell and sighed, nudging the door shut with an elbow. The light was dim and lent the otherwise sterile, sad feeling of it a cosiness. But in her mood, it was unrequited, and met only by her grunts and mutters as she undressed. All her silver stripped, rings, her anklet, left on the vanity. Small mirrors witness to her dishevelment and telling no one.

She sunk in, stared at the ugly stucco ceiling. What the hell had her Family done"

Steam rose and clouded and dissolved. She cold hear the television's muted slur through the wall. Sleep crept up and pulled its mask over her eyes. When Perry awoke, it was to shivers and her cousin's loud knocking on the door. "You alright?"

With a drowsy, thickened voice she assured him she was. Though she couldn't be sure. Not now. Not now that nothing else was a fair bet.

They had said Arnie was like her, Lucky as a horseshoe. Weren't they wrong.

"You can have the bed" he promised.

Getting out, she wrapped the towel around her, replete with its mocking clown face insignia, padding for the bed in question. "You can. I won't sleep."

It went like that for a while. He ended up asleep on the bed, exhausted and sheer with frustration at her being stubborn. Perry combed his hair, where it thinned at his temples, chestnut and gold. Now he was in this, too. Outside, another motorcycle passed, but the thunder she heard was her heart.