Ophelia closed the gate in the solid plank fence behind her.  The Jones-Carmichael house, as called by Historic Portsmouth, was a warm old Colonial, shoved back from the road up onto a back alley, so the yard was all thrown out in front for the ornate plantings Ophelia kept up after her mother died.  It gave off the impression of warm neglect, carefully cultivated like a set from an old Katherine Hepburn comedy.

Across the triangular traffic circle called Haymarket Square, the coroner's van pulled away from the curb in front of the Old Stark Place.  Ophelia watched, then turned and walked up the brick path that warped across the lawn.  The front door was propped open with a flat iron, and Ophelia pulled open the screen door, and walked into the front hall.  She tossed her sneakers under the cherry lowboy by the living room door. 

Her brother Fred was in the living room, seated at the sofa table, highlighter in hand as he paged through the old red Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Vol. 9, Extract to Gamb.  'Did you know that fancy didn't originally mean ornate?' He spoke to the room as a whole.

'Really?' Ophelia adjusted a lampshade.

'According to the etymology, the Middle English origin was another word for fantasy.  Later it took on other meanings such as whim, dream, desire.  And cute little chocolates that aren't meant to be consumed in large quantities as these just were.' Fred handed Ophelia the enamelled Louis Sherry chocolate tin.

'Even the Russian Strawberry Crèmes?'

'You never leave me the Mexican Caramels.' Fred scratched out a note on a loose sheet of paper. 

'Beatrice Wheatley was strangled last night.'

The pen in Fred's hand stopped mid-word.  He didn't say anything.

'Fred.' Ophelia touched his arm.  'Beatrice is dead.  Strangled.  Magnus found her body this morning.  I called the police.'

'That - that's not good.'  Fred set his pen down.  He had always been good friends with Beatrice, but broke it off after he entered Brown, as she hadn't graduated high school just then.  He had come home for the weekend, after he signed on for summer cram courses before a semester abroad in Europe.

Ophelia picked up a Brown University t-shirt and folded it before she draped it over the back of the worn-in leather chesterfield sofa.  'It was a very trying moment.  To see the girlfriend of your crush's best friend murdered.  And we all knew she had carried something of a torch for Magnus.'

'I didn't know.' Fred looked down at the papers scattered across the sofa table.

'Are you all packed to head back to school?' Ophelia changed the subject.

'Yes.' Fred snapped the Encyclopaedia shut. He put his head in his hands. 'No.  I don't know. I - I don't know.'

'You'll make it. I'll have to find something to wear to the trial. Anyway, it's best we kept on schedule, can't have you late to classes.'

'There's going to be a trial?'

Ophelia shook her head. 'Yes. We'll make it through though?'

'Oh. Yes. Yes, we will.' Frederick Carmichael was beyond any other reaction.

At the Thawne's, Eli sat on the edge of his bed, his hands rested on the turned wood post of the footboard of his bed. His chin was on his hands as he watched Magnus remove all the books from the bookshelf.

Magnus cathartically organised the books by colour, and set the them back on the shelf. He matched a red bound book of epitaphs with Devine Absence: Christ and the Cross, by Charles G. K. Spearman.

'Are you ok?'

'No.' Magnus opened the cover of an Everyman's Library copy of Bleak House, then set it next to Devine Absence.

Eli flopped back on the bed. 'So, you're saying that you are not alright?'

'Yes, I am saying that I am not alright, just leave me alone ok.' Magnus thumped through a copy of I Capture The Castle before he put it on another shelf.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

'I just said leave me alone.' Magnus compared the tonal differences between claret leatherette and maroon cotton bindings.

Eli hadn't given his bookshelves much thought. However, when Magnus was stressed, he rearranged the books according to colour, or height, or size, and Eli wouldn't keep up with the maintenance of the bookshelf, and Magnus would rearrange it, a simple cycle.

Magnus picked up the navy blue cloth bound copy of The Complete Works Of Emily Dickinson.  He opened it, and read under his breath That short, potential stir / That each can make but once, / That bustle so illustrious / 'T is almost consequence, // Is the éclat Of death. / Oh, thou unknown renown / That not a beggar would accept, / Had he the power to spurn !  Magnus stared down at the page. He didn't usually read poetry, it became vague and coy as he read, a tease who promised gratification, but only frustration as each layer was removed, only to reveal another. He did read the Rubyat of Omar-Kayam, once, to satisfy curiosity.  It had not been as erotic as The Music Man had led him to believe.

'Do you want to go for a walk later?' Eli still lay across his bed, spread-eagled as though dropped from the roof through at least one floor above.

'Maybe.  I don't know, I guess?'

'It'll be good for you.  You need to open up, and downtown is a good start.  We can go to one of the smaller places, Book'n'Bar?'

'That's not small, it's in the old post office.' Magnus set St. Bartholomew's Eve: A Tale Of The Huguenot Wars by G. A. Henty on the shelf. 

'Point taken.  But it has stacks, and you can sit on a windowsill in the back and play chess with yourself.'  Eli often went to Book'n'Bar, and sat on the floor in the back around the corner, legs crossed Indian style, as he perused books pulled from the shelves.  He had found his copy of Bleak House there.  Intrigued by the title, Eli paid the six dollars for the book and walked home, as he read about Lady Dedlock and the legal battles of Jarndyce & Jarndyce, he  discovered the complex Dickensian universe, with it's innate nuances and nonsensical rule, a complete and utterly absurd delight.  Later, a Nile green coloured paperback copy of Great Expectations found its way into his possession, and he devoured the autobiography of Pip. From that point on, Eli Thawne determined that he would love each day and look back and say, 'What Larks.'

At the moment though, he sat up, and walked over to the window.  'They've left the house.  What do you think he's going to tell the Wheatleys?'

'That she's gone away to visit friends in Canada?' Magnus licked his thumb and turned a page in a copy of Ordinary People by Judith Guest.  'He has to tell them she's dead.'

This chapter is dedicated to lord-writer for counsel and advice in the writing forum.

Author's Note: The poem quoted is LXXXIII The Funeral, by Miss Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886