The only way they'll let me in is through the back, where it'll be too late to slam the door in my face. I see the house as I walk past. the weeds are better, and the hedge has finally reached a tameable height. I bet Mr and Mrs. Michaels would be happy about that one. Ducking through the alley behind the house what was once the wall still stands, the biggest piece right now is SPAG, but there are smaller, less detailed tags over it, notably FUCK BLOODS CRIPS 4EVER and SPAG again, with the S covered over and the P erased selectively to form an F. I wonder how many layers there are between SPAG and the Pig with Mr. Stohler's face I sprayed so many years ago. The back fence is getting old. If it turns out they've started locking the back gate I'm not sure it could still hold my weight, worse I could get a slash through my blouse, and the only solace I have to give is that their daughter grew up into someone who pays a drycleaner on a monthly basis, who knew? No point getting concerned yet though. With a small kick to the right corner of the wire gate I find that some habits never die.  Fortunately it looks like it's the same deal for the back door tonight, who knows who they might have been waiting for. 
  I'm in the house before anyone notices. Take to the fridge to try to tempt fate. That'll be a great one, after all these years waiting they come down to the kitchen and there's Katherine one night helping herself to a glass of apple juice like this place is her own private hotel. Well, maybe they'll be too happy to notice. I open the fridge door, no apple juice, hmm, no light, no anything.
   "What are you doing, Kate?" I'm addressed by a voice belonging to a lace nightgown, turn up and it's Victoria, too tired to acknowledge the gravity of my return, I hope. She's the same Vicky lifted, I suppose. Her posture's gotten better and her face longer, did her hair always fall in curves like that? Was she always so tall?
  "I just wanted to see that everyone's alright", she flicks a switch and the lights turn on like opening a book, I'd forgotten how brown the house was. Perhaps it was the wooden furniture or mother's old photographs of relatives of different eras, even the greens had a distinct brownness to them.
  "We're fine, dad's out somewhere drinking. Mum's with him". So not much had changed after all, still, what was mother doing there? It occurs to me that what I should have realised by now that the light meant there was power after all, just no fridge. 
  I step towards her. I feel I owe it to Victoria to let her regard me, I thumb underneath my skirt and pull my blouse tighter, there were worse conditions to be judged under. Yet Victoria hardly looks up, as if she can take all there was of me in with a single glance. Surely this isn't the same Vicky who would look into the mirror and have every mole, freckle and scar jump out because she knew exactly where to look for them? The same who'd once thought that the heavens and earth shined out through her big sister's eyes. 
  I blurt out "So seven years has changed you a lot", for my benefit rather than hers. 
  Victoria's hospitality was always exceptional, but tonight she doesn't offer me a drink, even a seat. She stares, motionless, as a cat would a home invader. She's grown up faster than I could have imagined, eyes heavy from the day's makeup, freckles which used to dominate her face now titter delicately either side of her nose, below her collarbone there's a tattoo of what looks like a dead willow tree, half covered by her nightgown. 
  "You didn't start reading the newspaper after you left, did you?", her voice catches on the way out.
  "Not until I could afford them, at any rate"
  "Turns out, statistically, children don't run away and then never come back. There was a court trial and everything"
  "They thought it was mum and dad?"
  "Eventually they pinned it on James Volta. They'd needed one last nail and it all seemed plausible enough. Naturally, Volta knew it was all set up, but all he knew about it all were the previous suspects, Mum and Dad. Now death threats in a courtroom make for a pretty hasty conviction but nobody doubted him, he blew up Dad's shop the morning of the trial." 
  "So if I come back... They reopen the case,"
  "And Volta's free," I can barely stand still. I need to either run away in a mad sprint or melt into the floor.
  "I'm sorry, Kate, You'd better go," 
  I try to leave with gravity, dignity even, I head out the front door, taking care not to slam, but it seems to have lost so much weight in my absence. Nobody's going to notice me, I'm just a town legend roaming around twenty minutes before midnight. 

  Two blocks pass and my cars parked where I left it, the world I chose and it's a sleek silver, might aswell be a spaceship in this town. I'm even slightly suprised it lasted this long here with its windows still intact. 
  I drive. South-West, I think. Certainly it starts feeling colder. My headlights paving bitumen twenty metres infront of me. The dashboard fades into an orange glow. Just before the road runs out into sand. When I leave the car the stars are an elaborate glassware set. They don't look like different glaxies, and I think what could be worse than such a life changing, horizon broadening spiritual experience, and knowing exactly who you want to share it with. And the lights fade out because I've closed my eyes.