A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson

Author:Mary Lawson [Lawson, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2021-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

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She went over to Mrs. Orchard’s house (only now it was Mr. Kane’s) as usual and gave Moses his supper. When he’d finished she sat down cross-legged on the floor and watched him fit himself into the corners of boxes—nowadays he was more interested in the boxes than the mouse. Up until then she’d been careful to leave before the man came home but this time she waited for him.

He stopped in the doorway when he saw her. He didn’t look exactly cross but he didn’t look happy to see her either. Moses had skedaddled when he heard the man’s step on the porch.

The man said with a sigh, “Look, Clara—your name’s Clara, not Clare, right?”

Clara nodded.

“So, Clara. I guess you’ve been playing with the cat?”

She didn’t hear the question properly because her head was full of the thing she needed to ask him, but she nodded again.

The man nodded too. He said, “That’s fine, and I know your mom and dad said it was OK for you to come over, and I’m happy for you to do that when I’m not here. But I prefer to be on my own when I’m at home. It’s not that you’re doing anything wrong, I just prefer being alone. So you should go now, OK?”

Clara let his words drift past her ears. When they stopped, she waited a few seconds to be sure he’d finished and then said, “If you knew something and you didn’t tell the police because you promised not to, but then you did tell them because it was really, really important, would they put you in jail?”

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