CHAPTER THREE

*I know Amy was not alive and certainly not a teenager at the time of Amadeus and Rosemary, but I want to keep this familiar to everyone so I'm taking a bit of liberty with the timeline.

"Where did all this laundry come from?"

"That's what she said."

Rosemary jumped and turned around. It was a couple of days later, and Amadeus had left to see if he would be able to obtain some sort of work in the reserves, so Rosemary had decided to go down and do the laundry while he was gone. She had thought she was alone.

There was a young girl standing there. She was wearing a long-sleeved sweater even though it was not quite cool enough for one, tall red boots, and a strange-looking pendant. "Hello," said Rosemary. "I...I was talking to myself."

"Hey, we all do it," said the girl. "You've just moved in beside Bernie and Jules, haven't you?"

"Yes..." said Rosemary, having been able to go a few days without having to think of her strange neighbours.

"I'm Amy," said the girl, holding out a hand. "I live with them."

"I've never seen you before," said Rosemary, taking her hand and looking at the girl closely.

"I haven't been around lately," she said. "I'm trying to get a job, you see. I'm out all day."

"Are you their daughter, then?" said Rosemary, thinking that it was a bit odd that this girl was not strange like Jules and Bernadette.

"No," said Amy. "They took me in off the street."

"I'm sorry?"

"I used to live on the street," said Amy matter-of-factly. "I used to be a huge druggie. Look," she said, and she pulled up her left sleeve. Rosemary was horrified to see tracks lacing the girl's arm, evidence of heavy drug abuse.

"I...I'm sorry," said Rosemary, at a loss for words.

"It's okay," said Amy, pulling her sleeve back down and going back to folding pants. "It's history now. Jules and Bernie saved me from a pretty shitty existence. I was on the fast track to nowhere, but they literally saved my life by taking me in."

"That's very sweet," said Rosemary, although privately she would have preferred to stay on the street than move in with those people. She felt her eye drawn to the pendant around Amy's neck. "Where did you get that? Did they give it to you?"

"Oh yes," said Amy, fingering it. Then she took it off and handed it to Rosemary. "Here, take a look."

It was a silver ball on a silver chain. And there was a strange smell coming from it. Rosemary had never even heard of a scented pendant before, so she asked Amy about it.

"It's from some sort of root," said Amy, taking the pendant back and putting it around her neck. "Bernie gave it to me. It's kind of neat. Anyway I don't take it off. It's my reminder that someone out there cares about me."

"They've been that good to you?"

"They took me off the street!" Amy laughed, putting the pants into a basket and putting it against her hip. "If that's not being good to me, I don't know what is! See you later, uh..."

"Rosemary," said Rosemary, feeling a bit silly for talking to Amy all this time and not telling the girl her name.

"Bye Rosemary!" said Amy, and she headed off.

Rosemary went back to doing her laundry, which really amounted to staring at the washing machine, and wondered how such creepy people could be seen as so generous.

A few days later Rosemary and Amadeus were coming back from their old house, just having to do a couple of things to finalize the sale, but when they arrived there was a patrol of police cars all flashing lights and a large crowd of people gathered around them. Rosemary strained to see what was going on but she wasn't quite tall enough.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I haven't any idea," said Amadeus. "Stay here, I'll go ask one of those gentlemen."

Rosemary, however, was unable to stop herself from being moved in the crush of the crowd, and was forced closer and closer to the police tape. When she saw what the problem was her heart stopped.

It was Amy.

Her broken body lay spread-eagled on the cold pavement in a pool of dark blood. Strangely, Rosemary's eye was drawn to the pendant. It was lying on the ground some distance away from the girl. The chain must have broken.

"Rosemary?"

She turned around to see Amadeus coming through the crowd towards her. "I'm sorry," she said. "The crowd-"

"It's quite all right," he said, frowning when he saw Amy's body. "Though I'd have rathered you didn't see that."

"Well...Amadeus, I was just talking to her."

"What, now?"

"No, a few days ago. She lives...lived with Bernie and Jules."

"She's their daughter?"

"No, they took her in." Quickly Rosemary told Amadeus what Amy had said to her in the laundry room. He nodded slowly and said, "They're going to be devastated."

Rosemary looked up into the darkening sky, trying to gauge where the girl had fallen from. Picking out an open window with light streaming from it, she counted up and across, and with a start realized that Amy had jumped from Jules and Bernie's apartment.

Or maybe she had been pushed.

Oh, don't be silly, Rosemary told herself. The two hedgehogs might make her uneasy, but Amy had obviously thought the world of them.

"Oh my God," said a voice behind them, and Amadeus gently nudged Rosemary to the side. When she looked around to see why, she saw that Jules and Bernie had arrived. Bernie looked like she wanted to jump out of a window herself.

"I just...I don't understand," said Bernie tearfully. "She didn't seem unhappy...I thought she liked living with us..."

"Some things strangers just can't give a young girl, Bernie," said Jules, but it was obvious he was very shaken up over it as well.

"No, no, that had nothing to do with it," said Rosemary, and right away she realized how that sounded. Kind of like maybe she'd had something to do with Amy's death. "She thought you were wonderful. She thought the world of you."

"Oh, really?" said Bernie, sniffing into a handkerchief. "Are you quite sure, Rosemary?"

"Oh yes," said Rosemary, her maternal nature regrettably kicking in. "I spoke to her just the other day. She was very happy with you. She said you saved her life."

"For a while, at least," said Jules, and Bernie turned to him to hide her face. No matter how much Rosemary disliked these people, she hated to see people in pain, so she tried to comfort them as best she could. Dimly she was aware of Amadeus, not really part of the whole thing as he had not known Amy at all, but always standing by her in case she needed him.

Later that night Rosemary and Amadeus finally made their way up to their apartment, having giving their consolation to Bernie and Jules, and when they got into bed neither of them spoke. They were both tired and emotionally drained by the whole thing. Seeing a death was not easy, even if you only were witness to the aftermath. Rosemary hoped Amadeus would not close off because of it. That really would ruin her night.

After a few minutes however Amadeus turned over and drew her into his arms. "I'm sorry you had to see that," he murmured.

"It wasn't your fault," said Rosemary.

"I wasn't suggesting that it was," said Amadeus, taking her words too literally as usual. "But I never wished for you to see such a thing."

"I'm alright, thanks," said Rosemary, and he did not speak again, but as soon as she detected that his breathing was heavy with sleep she became afraid.

Maybe Jules and Bernie did push Amy. They did come down to the scene afterwards, after all. And every time she walked by they were in their apartment, door wide open, but oddly enough the accident seemed to be a surprise to them...

She shivered and moved in as close to Amadeus as possible. As long as he was with her, it would be all right. She'd like to see the old hedgehogs get to her through him.

Only right before she drifted off did she realize she was being paranoid and a bit ridiculous. They weren't out to get her. They were harmless. They were old. They weren't staring at her all the time, she was just imagining it.

She hoped.