Some days later, when Ta’abi’s replacement pane has been delivered and installed in Unger’s oval window frame, Elphie and Nanny are clearing up after dinner. Lei Leila’ani has finally persuaded Frex to go for an evening stroll. Shell has been dragged along by Frex—perhaps to provide a prophylactic against a marriage proposal. It’s an hour before sunset, which seems to slam down upon the marshlands so hard it might as well make a sound. In the boardinghouse, the others busy themselves in Lei’s buttery. Elphie can’t wash plates—the water—so she scrapes them. Nanny rinses. Nessa moons about nearby, mewingly.
“What I still don’t understand,” says Elphie, “is why that window shattered when I was having my first interview with Unger. Are you sure Shell didn’t sneak out, Nanny, and follow us, and pitch that stone through the window? It sounds like him. And you sometimes fall asleep during the day, don’t pretend otherwise.”
“Shell is a dab hand at destruction, like all small boys fore and since,” says Nanny. Neither confirming nor denying Elphie’s theory.
“He lobs stones at cats and such. I once saw him bring down a hummingbird with a meatball. Knock it clean dead out of the air.” Elphie looks at Nanny. “It seems just like him. What, what’s that expression mean? You didn’t throw that rock through Unger Bi’ix’s window.”
“Certainly not,” said Nanny, offended. “I have no arm.”
“And,” says Nessa, shrugging as much as she can manage, “you can be pretty sure I didn’t throw it. So don’t blame me.”
“It’s not blame,” says Elphie. “Just a question.”
“Well,” says Nanny, “the answer is purely obvious, and I can weigh in on it if you like.” The girls both nod. Nanny plunges her hands back into the soapy water and talks over her shoulder. “It must have been your father, of course, Elphie. Who else could throw a rock with such force as to break that glass?”
“No,” says Elphie. “Really? But why?”
Nanny turns to them, a rub of suds on one cheek. “I don’t understand men, never did never will. But I can venture a guess. You say your father sent you up to the porch of that fabric shop to begin to get a foothold in this town. But he thought the manager would be a woman. He didn’t expect a man to usher you inside, did he. And he didn’t like to see you being alone with a single man and no chaperone accompanying you. I’m guessing he regretted his decision at once—but he needed too desperately whatever you might find out about Turtle Heart. So the shattering of the glass was his way to interrupt whatever was going on, to get you out of there unharmed. That’s my theory.”
“So wrong. He doesn’t think I’m capable of being in any danger. I’m too—” She makes a flapping gesture from wrists to fingertips. “Well, look at me.”
“You will do that,” observes Nessa, “drawing attention to your arms at the slightest possibility. I’ve learned not to take it personally.” Her smile is sanctimonious and perhaps just a little lethal, but also, it has to be said, pained.
“But why didn’t Papa just come up and get me, if he was worried on my behalf?”
“Oh, who knows,” says Nanny.
“I do,” says Nessa. She who has no stones to throw, no arms to punch out with, deploys her elliptic, apologetic, aggressive wince of a smile. “He’s scared of you, Elphie.”