A Girl, a Murder, and Twelve Dreadful Children

Chapter III: Looking for a Dream Weaver

PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Hotaru Asumi knew many things. She knew how to speak Japanese and English, which was unsurprising, and Portuguese, which was more surprising. She knew how much blood was in the human body -- something she could hardly avoid learning, when her aunt was a doctor. She knew there was a monster under her bed. She left a biscuit for it every night, and in the morning only crumbs remained. She knew that there was some mystery about Dani, and the eleven children the older girl had ended up looking after.

And now, she knew that Dani's house had become even more mysterious.

Everyone was muttering and whispering to everyone else. Dani had dark circles under her eyes and an unusually abrupt way of speaking. Everywhere Hotaru looked she was just in time to see someone quickly shoving something -- a notebook? -- out of sight.

Nowadays Hotaru spent most of her time with her mother, or her aunt if her mother was at work, and only visited Dani on weekends. Never before had she arrived for her weekly visit to find everyone acting like they had something to hide. This sudden baffling mystery just begged for her to solve it.

She watched the other children's odd behaviour for an hour or two. Then, still unable to find an explanation for it, she went straight to Kevin. He wasn't the oldest of the children, but he was the one who had lived with Dani the longest. Therefore, he should know the most about what was happening.

"There's been a murder," Kevin told her. "And we think Dani's suspected of it. The police questioned her about it and everything. So we're going to prove she's innocent!"

At thirteen, many people -- most notably her mother -- thought Hotaru was too young to think of anything on her own. Hotaru strongly disagreed with them. She liked to think that she had many good ideas. And she was sure she had one now.

"But how are you going to prove it on your own? Why don't you ask Dani to help you? She's older than any of us. People will take her seriously when they'd only laugh at us."

Kevin shook his head. "We can't ask Dani. She has enough to worry about. If she knew she'd just tell us to leave this to the police."

~~~~

Dani had a plan. It was a rather poor plan. Even she could see that. But it might work.

Somewhere in Armagh there was a girl rumoured to be a Dream Weaver -- a sort of witch who could see into the past, present and future. She might be able to at least give Dani some idea of where to look for clues.

The only trouble was that the children would want to go with her. They were up to something, Dani was sure of it. But there had been no explosions yet and the house was still standing. So she was content to say nothing and wait for this latest craze, whatever it was, to die of its own accord. But how was she to go to Armagh, find a girl who might not even exist, and learn anything useful she might have to say without the children finding out about it?

It's strange but true that adults and children have an irresistible urge to keep things from each other for their own good. Dani didn't want the children to find out she was trying to solve the murder. The children didn't want Dani to find out they were trying to do the same.

Without even meaning to, Dani saw the children as less intelligent than adults and less able to help in a difficult situation. The children, meanwhile, knew from their observations of their adult counterparts that turning twenty -- or eighteen, or sixteen in extreme cases -- meant losing all common sense. And so she kept things from them, and they kept things from her, and everyone muddled on and got nothing done.