DAILY ENTRY 1
The First Morning
For the third day in a row the forecasters have predicted snow, but for the third day they’ve been wrong. In fairness it’s cold enough, with everyone’s breath clouding as they go about their morning business snuggled deep in their overcoats and scarves, and the sky is a winter-weight eiderdown of silver-grey clouds… but something is holding back the storm. It’s as if the town is waiting. Watching. Perhaps it’s just a sign of respect, considering that today is the anniversary of Ana’s death.
They found her hanging from the stone bridge that crosses the Cheshire River to the south of town. Her stockinged feet dangled ten inches or so above the surface of the water, her shoes having somehow been lost; there was ice in her hair and her eyes and her lungs, her flesh was the colour of old stone, and her suicide note was frozen in her hand. She had obviously swung from the rope all night, before being discovered at approximately this time of morning, one year ago. Poor Anastasia Lee. She would have turned seventeen the very next day.
To look at the faces of those who live and work here in the Ridge, you’d think they didn’t remember. But they do. There’s Jackson Nero, leaning in the doorway of the coffeehouse, laughing and smiling with the girls who are on their way to school, but with a trace of unfamiliar sadness in his eyes. There’s Miss Shiriyaki, prim and petite, scouring a newspaper with intent as she sips her cappuccino, but unable to concentrate. There’s Orville Hayward, in his wheelchair, accepting a delivery of a new 16th Century Bavarian armoire off the back of a delivery truck outside his antiques store, his manner uncustomarily curt. And so many others, here and elsewhere throughout the Ridge. They all remember Ana, and today will affect all of them.
But not as much as Delores Lee, Ana’s mother. She’ll be down at the station house, of course, trying to convince the police that her daughter was murdered. She wouldn’t have taken her own life, after all - not with the baby that was growing inside her. No-one ever discovered who the father was, and no evidence was ever unearthed that suggested anything other than a sad and terrified young girl tragically giving in to her fears. But Delores will never be swayed.
And so, today, there will be an air of melancholy lingering about Cougar Ridge. At least at first. Come sundown, however, it may well be that this town has far more to be worried about than it ever realised…