Hilltop House

Cora, Ten

For the second time in three days, police and paramedics filled the end of the street in front of the house on the hilltop. Their red and blue lights spun color across the windows and bricks, a flashing carousel in the early morning gloom. Anyone left on the street had come out of their homes: Cora and Maeve, Alan and Brian, Niecey, Tom and Ann. They were gathered on the sidewalk, speaking quietly amongst themselves, Maeve recounting again how she'd stumbled across the body, Alan claiming he'd board up Dottie's broken window so "those damned cats" couldn't go in and out. The shimmering dawn, the frosty mist gave the entire scene a surreal effect, especially as those huddling with one another were hardly friends, barely acquaintances. It was a weird street, with weird people, and now one of them was dead.

"I hardly even knew him," Ann was loudly saying to her husband.

"He was very reclusive," was her husband's reply. "It's not our fault he was alone."

"They said the cats were eating him. Wonder what his family will think of that." Niecey croaked her addition to the conversation and turned to head back into her house, struggling with her walker.

Cora had been standing with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, attempting to avoid Brian though not really needing to try as he stood a good twenty or so feet away from her. Seeing Niecey's predicament, she hustled over to the old woman and bent down to pull the foot of the walker from a crack in the pavement, where it'd stuck. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"He had dementia," the old woman responded, ignoring Cora's question.

"Dementia? You mean, like, he was losing his mind?"

"Don't we all, though? You think you're spared because you're young?" She laughed hoarsely.

A bit weirded out, Cora continued walking alongside the old woman, partially because she worried Niecey would stumble and partially out of some compulsion. That photograph she'd dug out of her neighbor's trash had been simmering in the back of her thoughts for some time, but she didn't know how to ask about it without revealing that she'd been snooping.

"Your house," Niecey went on before Cora could say anything else. "Why was he at your house, eh? What do you think? Came all the way up the street. For what?"

The woman was moving steadily down the pathway that led to her front door, her walker's legs grating against the concrete. Cora walked in the crunchy grass, glad her furry slipper boots kept the damp out. "I don't know why he—"

"Because he knew, that's why. Even in his muddled head, he knew. Hadn't he lived here his whole life?"

"Knew what?"

"Something straight out of hell, it's what he knew."

Cora frowned, unsettled. The woman sounded angry, bitter even, speaking as if to herself. Placing a hand on the walker to stop it, Cora asked firmly, "Niecey, what are you talking about?"

Suddenly, the woman seemed to recognize her, bobbed her head a bit. Light entered her black eyes; a smile revealed a few of her teeth. "You wild girl, you! I saw that handsome young man come to visit you last night. I always liked them rebellious, myself."

She was talking about Ben, obviously, but Cora didn't want to discuss him. "You said the old man, the one who died in my yard—Mr. George, right?—you said he knew something."

"I did?"

"Yes. What did he know?"

Niecey's cordial smile wavered. "I'm sorry, hon. I don't know what you mean."

There was no point in pushing. Cora sighed, finished helping the woman to her door, made up some excuse about being unable to come in and look through Niecey's old clothes to see if she wanted any, and returned to the dispersing group of neighbors. Just as she reached her mother's side, she caught sight of Brian's retreating figure. She'd not spoken or texted with him since the night before, when they'd parted on unfortunate terms. Whatever he'd said to Ben had apparently stopped Ben from trying to get into her house, and she was grateful for that. She wanted to talk to Brian, but she was unsure how to start a conversation.