The Key Chased the Blade

Simon and I boarded the bus and sat down at the back of it. There were a few people riding it with us. One guy was unbelievably drunk and was trying to make conversation with an old lady who was awkwardly trying to avoid him. I would've found it hilarious at any other time, but this wasn't some other time.

"Are you really going to go through with this?" I asked.

"I'm already here, I'm not going to stop," Simon said. His gaze stayed on me for a while and then he looked out the window. He shuffled his backpack between his feet. It must've really sucked carrying that around; his books and binder were probably soaked. The rain was still pouring outside and it spattered on the window. Simon mumbled, "We've got to do something about this."

"God, Simon, you're such a saint," I said. "An annoying saint though."

Simon cracked a grin and shook his head. "Whatever, Noah."

The bus rolled down the road and we made it to the bus station. Simon actually didn't know where he was going, so we had to ask around and look at all the bus routes. It was hell and I was pissed at him the whole time. The sky was still pouring buckets of rain on us and it was thundering. This was probably the worst I'd seen the weather here. Jesus, I swear I saw lightning.

When we got there, we made the report to a policeman that literally had the policeman mustache. "So where did this happen?" he asked us.

Simon shifted uneasily. "I think it was along Kings West Street in an alleyway. There was a huge clock there and the birds were hung around the sides." Simon looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded awkwardly. I didn't really know what to say so I was just going to let him talk. "We came across it about an hour ago."

The policeman nodded and wrote some things down. He looked tired, and he looked like the kind of guy in cartoons that always had a rain cloud over his head and always had bad things happen to him. "Okay," he said. "Did you take any pictures? Even a cell phone picture?"

Simon swallowed and I mentally kicked myself. That would've been a good idea. "No," Simon admitted. "The sight scared us so we left before we did anything."

The policeman wrote that down."Your names?" he asked.

Simon blanched. I thought he thought they were going to tell his parents and he'd get in trouble, but he said, "Simon O'Neill," anyway. I was pretty impressed. "Noah Mordred," I added.

"Alright." He wrote that down. I wondered if he was going to ask us why we weren't in school. "This case is pretty eerie. Now I'm going to ask you a few more questions and we'll investigate it as soon as possible. So..."

He asked us boring things like our contact information and later we were done. Simon was in a better mood when we went back. Still a little weird, but in a better mood. I wasn't necessarily convinced that the police were going to investigate the birds though. They were probably more concerned with Sadie. Either way, we rode the bus all the way back to the stop and Simon and I were back to joking. Simon offered to buy me something at the store.

"Fine, but I'll pay you back tomorrow." I was pretty much out of money by now, all I had was loose change from paying for the bus ticket. I hated taking his money without paying it back though; it just made me feel weird if I didn't.

"What do you want?" Simon asked.

"Coffee. Very hot coffee. And soup too," I said.

But as we were heading toward Market of Choice and going down as Alder Street, I saw something in Sadie Amala's yard.

And I was surprised and horrified to see that it was the washing lady from before.