It took a lot of effort to come across as apathetic. Hannah had been doing it for months. Alma’s death had been labelled as undetermined - though everybody knew the cause behind it. Hannah could have told the cops a thousand times who killed her, but the fact of the matter was that nobody really cared. On the night of her death, Alma had been at her small apartment alone, having put Esther to bed hours ago. The incident had been blamed on a bad fall, or an unexpected health concern, as though Alma were in severe danger living on her own. Perhaps she was.

“Alma’s death wasn’t an accident,” Hannah had insisted to the police officers investigating the scene. “She was murdered by our neighbour, Sebastian. He’d already killed both of my parents.” Everybody knew you couldn’t solve a crime without evidence. Everybody knew the unproven words of a woman had no bearing against an authority figure.

Eight months ago, Hannah moved to Newfoundland after deciding she needed a fresh start. She’d taken Saphira with her, after the teenager begged to come along. She was nearly an adult. In Newfoundland, the people were friendlier, and the churches were plentiful. There was a fear, also, of being found - the way Alma had been found. As a child, Hannah admired Sebastian. As a teenager, she was fascinated by him.

Hannah’s nieces hadn’t yet warmed up to her. Maia hid behind her mother, beginning to become wary of strangers. Viola was small, incapable of even crawling without assistance. Born with spina bifida, she’d never developed the mobility of a normal baby, and according to Mosiah, likely would never accomplish much mobility at all. Hannah never wanted kids. She certainly didn’t possess the patience or dedication to care for a disabled child. This wasn’t fair to say.

Do you ever regret having Viola? Do you wish you could have your freedom back?

Hannah, if you’re not prepared for a sick or disabled child, you’re not prepared for a child at all.

Over the past couple of months, all of Hannah’s youngest siblings had been legally adopted by older ones. After Alma’s death, Esther had vehemently refused to be taken in by anybody else aside from Mosiah. He didn’t seem to mind this. Esther was nine years old and followed Mosiah everywhere he went: she’d always been obsessed with him. Hannah hated kids, but she had to admit that the best place for Esther was with Mosiah. With two kids of his own, he knew how to be a father, and Esther was no longer alone.

It had taken nearly five hours to travel to Manitoba, and was Hannah’s first time on a plane. Working part-time in retail jobs didn’t pay much; she’d needed help paying for airline tickets. Mosiah, who had had the idea for Hannah to come visit, had been more than happy to help.

“Hi,” said Hannah to Maia, who looked like her mother. “Are you scared of me? I’m not scary.” Hannah was nineteen years old. Since moving, she’d grown up very quickly. Mosiah’s duplex was bigger than her apartment, but not by much. He was much tidier than he’d been as a teenager: cleaning up after dinner and keeping up with household chores. Perhaps, like Hannah, he’d been forced to grow up a lot over a short period of time.

Maia looked away. When her father entered the living room, she held out her arms to him.

“She’s a little shy.” Mosiah hadn’t changed a bit. He dressed in the same Gothic style, and wore the same red contact lenses. “Maia, that’s your aunt, Hannah.” She attended preschool part time, but spent most of her time at home with her mother. Since Hannah’s arrival in Manitoba, Mosiah hadn’t once asked about things back home. Aside from Hannah, he didn’t seem to care about the lives of his siblings.

“Hannah, guess what! I really like it here!”

Esther struggled to get along with other kids. She was old enough to understand how to play nicely with others, but hadn’t had a lot of practice. She was bossy and impatient, demanding to play with Maia, not seeming to understand that she was little. At four years old, Maia had the attitude of a fourteen year old, rivaled only by the attitude of her mother. The children were spoiled; Maia got everything she wanted. Mosiah was assertive and impolite - but when it came to his wife and daughters, he was a pushover.

After their sister’s death, Mary had been the first one Hannah heard from. Though they never spoke much growing up, the girls had spoken on the phone for nearly an hour that night. Mary was nothing like Hannah. This didn’t seem to matter as much as it had in the past.

“What did they tell you?” Mary had asked, “About Alma?”

She shouldn’t have had to ask. Orion Zoan had had a plethora of secrets, and all of his children had secrets of their own. “They suspected it was a murder, but called it an undetermined cause.” It had been six months since Alma’s death, and it seemed nobody cared. She’d appeared to have choked to death, and according to law enforcement, nothing about this was suspicious. Her apartment and her body had been bleached from top to bottom, the floors vacuumed, the doors locked tightly - Esther left alone in bed to find her the next morning.

There were several warrants out for Sebastian’s arrest. His accomplice, Jude, had been arrested for multiple crimes, including breaking and entering and aiding and abetting. After the review of the camera footage, Sebastian had promptly disappeared, forcing the investigating officers to postpone his arrest until he was located. Hannah suspected someone had tipped him off - likely the same person who let him into the house after dark. She was observant, but the farm had been bustling and noisy, and it was easy to miss things happening right under your nose.

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“Hannah, come to the park with us. Valentina’s got work to do.”

Mosiah helped his daughters get shoes on. It was June; Hannah had to be back to work the following week. She’d made friends in her neighbourhood, and shared her apartment with a fellow Christian girl. In the months since moving, Hannah had even gotten a new boyfriend - though he wasn’t as religious as her, and only attended church on occasion. It was strange to attend church without her parents. It was strange to have the freedom to do whatever she pleased.

“Okay.”

Hannah looked nothing like her brother: but if you were observant, you may have been able to tell they were related. He held Maia’s hand as she walked, lugging Viola in one arm down the sidewalk. At nearly a year old, she was small and often fussy - a reminder to Hannah of her distaste of children.

Hannah didn’t know what had been done with her sister’s body. Perhaps it had been hidden away, taking the secrets of her death with it. Perhaps, and more unlikely, it had been buried and forgotten about. There was no denying that Alma would be forgotten about. Everybody was, in the end.

Bleach was a serial killer’s best friend. A man who knew what he was doing could leave a crime scene without leaving a hint of a sign he was ever there.

“Will you ever get her a mobility aid?”

Viola needed near-constant supervision. Since Hannah’s arrival, Maia had thrown several tantrums over this. Crouching, she dug furiously in the playground’s small sandpit. Mosiah placed the baby next to her sister, kneeling in the grass next to them. Hannah didn’t know what had happened to him. As a teenager, he swore he’d never have kids. “Maybe. We have an appointment next month with a specialist.” He wore dark eyeliner, fishnet gloves: if he’d dressed this way growing up, their mother would have had something to say. “How’s living in Newfoundland?”

It was hard to get by without a cent to your name. Moving had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and had taken much more time than Hannah expected it to. She’d taken the cash from atop her parents’ dresser, and made sure to have jobs lined up before moving. Hannah was inexperienced, but she wasn’t stupid.

“It’s fine.” It felt wrong to be independent. Hannah had never had solid plans for her future, no expectations for herself other than to be a wife and a mother. Lately, she wasn’t sure she wanted either of these things. “Do you ever feel angry that you didn’t get a proper childhood?” Hannah wasn’t much of a personal conversationalist. She’d missed her brother, and had nobody to talk to back home.

Mosiah shrugged. “I did when I first left. I’m over it now.” Maia, who was making a sandcastle, threw a handful at her sister before getting up and running off. Viola cried loudly. Hannah felt irritated. Mosiah looked tired. “Maia, if you can’t play nice, you’re not going to play at all.

I’m never having kids.

“Is she always like this?”

Hannah had heard from an older friend that children always behaved worst for their parents. If this was true, she’d certainly never become a mother.

According to the police investigating Alma’s death, the neighbours had been woken very early in the morning by Esther, who had been taken in by Alma after leaving the farm. It had been foolish to neglect to teach the girl about emergency numbers - but Hannah supposed this was something she could have forgotten as well. She had many questions about what had happened, and it was likely none of them would ever be answered.

The girls played nicely, taking turns being pushed on the swings. It wasn’t a very accessible park, and Viola struggled to play. Since arriving, she’d made herself comfortable in the spare bedroom, and woken several times to the crying of the baby.

Hannah hadn’t spent much time wondering Sebastian’s motives. Surely, he knew the truth behind Orion’s outward presentation, and watched him get away with it for far too many years. What he had done was wrong and deserved punishment. Hannah had never felt threatened by Sebastian the way some of her siblings had. She never hated him for his choices. Everyone knew most of Orion’s children had wished death upon him in the past. No one ever had the guts to do it except Sebastian.

“I understand the reason for wanting to kill Mom and Dad,” Mosiah said, rounding up the girls, “but why Alma? I can’t figure it out.”

There were still many unanswered questions. Hannah had never been fond of mysteries. “That’s what I’m wondering, too. He was always nice to Alma. They seemed to get along.” Upon further investigation of the crime scene footage, it was discovered that Sebastian had been accompanied by a man named Jude, who also attended Hannah’s church. There wasn’t much known about his involvement. Hannah hardly knew him at all. Perhaps she should have been afraid. If you lived a holy and proper life, there was nothing to fear. “Who do you think could have let him inside? He never had a key, and there were no spares hidden anywhere.”

“I don’t know. Who liked him the most?”

Growing up, Hannah argued with Mosiah regularly. He was three years older, and made fun of her for being childish and stupid. She loudly opposed his beliefs and style, knowing this was expected of her, determined to be pleasing and rewarded. Mosiah always had a retort in arguments that made Hannah feel inferior and angry, and Hannah always was eager to gossip about him to her father. When Hannah was a teenager, Mosiah became less of a nuisance and more of a fascination: something she refused to admit to him. It was easy to do what you were told. It was brave and stupid to disobey.

“Weren’t you ever afraid to be disobedient?”

Mosiah’s wife was out of his league. She was obsessed with him, and Hannah didn’t understand why. She sat on the floor to watch her brother play with his kids, reluctantly impressed. “Maybe when I was really little.” He helped Viola eat, and didn’t look at Hannah. “Mom and Dad always went on and on about what kinds of terrible things would happen to us if we sinned or disobeyed. But I got older, and I watched other people sin, and I realized none of that stuff happened at all. That’s when I knew everything they said was bullshit.”

When Hannah was little, she was afraid too. This was what her parents always wanted: to be feared by their children, to be obeyed without question. If you couldn’t think for yourself, you would never understand when you were mistreated or lied to. Hannah still believed in God. But she’d begun to do it differently - making her own opinions about those who were different, and trying to become less judgmental. This had been difficult, but she had discovered recently that this was necessary.

Hannah knew little about her sister-in-law. She knew that Valentina had controversial opinions and practices, and that she had a strained relationship with her family. She sat on the floor between her daughters, watching them play. Sometimes Hannah missed her childhood, but not in the way it had been. She missed what she could have had: best friends, travels, innocence. It was never too late to start anew, but there were some things in life a person could never get back.