Our Lady of Peace receded in the rear view mirror as Mark Hancock drove southbound down Androscoggin, heading in the vague direction of his home in the rural town of Gloaming, Maine. Reverend Doherty's sermon had been one of the value of community, supporting one's brothers and sisters in the event of a loss. While, the newly re-appointed preacher had admitted, Deuteronomy 25:5 was not so universally applicable today as perhaps it once was in the Middle East of a couple millennia bygone, the principle within is one of helping to alleviate the burdens of loved ones in need, and he had advised his congregation pay at least a cursory visit to the estate sale due to begin shortly following the conclusion of service that day. Mike was driving the long way home, now, going a little out of his way to do just that; the widow McClusky was in dire need of support, and he intended to give his wholesale. It had been over six months since the girl, Erin, had gone missing, and it was common enough knowledge that the widow McClusky's late husband had taken his own life due to the understandable despair. There was still no sign of Erin McClusky, living or dead, in the ensuing weeks of estate management, and the widow's health had visibly suffered as she struggled to manage her husband's affairs and mourn her lost daughter. Mark glanced down to his right as if anxious that the steak and ale pie was likely to teleport outside his Honda and break open upon the asphalt. He was mostly just hoping it hadn't sprouted legs and attempted to clamber out of the window--he could not be entirely certain of its edibility, though the recipe had been easy enough to follow. "Fresh beef and a whole lot of Guinness," Mark called to Elizabeth McClusky as he gently nudged the door of the Civic closed with his heavy booted foot. He was a hulk of a man, and looked like a werewolf driving a clown car, but his gentleness was clear--having been a large and clumsy child, he had learned to adapt to a world built for chihuahuas, and his great dane strides had shrunk to deliberate paces over the years. "Oh, Mark, really now..." Elizabeth began, but started over. "It's lovely of you to do this for me, I haven't even thought about food," she admitted, "not with all of..." she gestured to the yard, her husband's belongings littering it like a very conscientious twister had torn the house apart and gently deposited its contents in neat rows. "All this? Even the big stuff?" Mark asked, almost amazed, peering up into the face of the ancient pendulum clock that had turned the dining room of the McClusky household into something nearly stately. "Everything must go!" Elizabeth cheered wanly, furnishing Mark with a sad but genuine smile. "I'm leaving town, Mark. There's nothing left for me in this big house any more... not without Harry and--" she stifled a sob. "Not without Erin." Mark placed the saran-wrapped ceramic dish on a nearby armoire, and folded his old friend into his massive arms. She let him hold her for several moments as she began to freely sob into his shirt. Mark caught the eye of a couple new arrivals and they smiled sympathetically, as much for Mark as for the widow moistening his button-down. "I'm so sorry," said the huge man with the trembling waif within his arms. "I'm so sorry, Liz, I can't even begin to imagine..." he paused. "Where will you go?" Elizabeth sniffed deeply and pulled the handkerchief from her cardigan. "My sister, New York, she lives near the city, I can get the train, commute, you know? I've spoken to Lauren at the Daily, and she says I can work on a column by email, something I don't need to be in Gloaming to keep up while I find something in the city. Who knows--" she laughed, almost bitterly, "maybe you'll be reading me in The Times by next year!" Mark gave her a placating smile and held her at arm's length. "Ayah, I don't doubt it for a second; I always knew this town was too small for you, especially with all your fancy letters." Elizabeth had gone into waitressing straight out of high school and poured all of her wages and tips into a correspondence course at the University of Maine, getting her undergraduate degree in Communication and Journalism. It took her over twice the length of the full-time course, but with her parents' support--and, more importantly, no rent to pay out of her childhood bedroom--it was the only way to get it done. A small-town girl would have no way to support herself in Orono, she figured, if she wanted to save herself for marriage. Elizabeth Fletcher, daughter of Martin and Dawn Fletcher, had found her way to graduation and a job at the local rag, a decidedly conservative broadsheet that had a funny way of being able to spin gossip and sensationalism for a reserved and almost deluded audience who believed themselves above such tawdry things. Indeed, with her knack for sniffing out a juicy story and her uncanny ability to tailor it for a market who'd deny wanting 'juice' from all but the sourest of lemons, she certainly had prospects. In a strange way, she found herself musing, her husband's suicide had really freed her. Her, a forty-something year old down-easterner, had no more earthly tethers to this small, gloomy town. "You've been reading me since high school, haven't you?" Elizabeth asked Mark as he began to pore over her late husband's belongings like a vulture looking for the prime parts of a rotting pangolin, its belly opened up and exposed to the sky. "Ayah," he reflected, "since '93 or thereabouts." He wrinkled his nose at an uncleaned and overfilled pot-pourri dish. "This was his?" "Mine, I'm just trying to get rid of as much as I can. The rest is going to the church basement once those bees are removed. Reverend Sean says there's plenty of room down there and he'll donate or sell it piecemeal and use the funds to redecorate the rectory--" she began to explain. "'Lord knows that's overdue'," Mark finished for her. Sean Doherty had been talking about the fabled refurbishment for years, now. "How he's lived there for so long without going mad is beyond me," he added, before realising what he'd said and closing his eyes in regret. "Ayah," she said, "careful there. The rehab's still fresh, and if I can help him do up his home I'll consider it a public service." The good Reverand Sean Andrew Doherty had returned several weeks prior from a multi-month stint in a facility to wean him off the communion wine with which he'd been drinking himself to death. "Aha!" Mark called from behind the grandfather clock, where a basket of odds and ends sat atop a collapsible table Elizabeth had borrowed from the church. "This is universal?" "I haven't the faintest idea," she said, coming to join him. "It's unbranded," said Mark, turning over the silver plastic television remote in his massive hands. "Looks fairly new, too, the batteries are probably still good." He flipped open the hinged battery cover and saw the duracell rechargables inside. "You need a new chick-chuck?" She asked, using her father's word for it, referring to the sound made by the buttons of her family's TV remote from the 80s. "Ayah, lost mine a while back, just up and vanished," he mused. "How much?" "A buck, it's of no use to me; Harry even smashed the television before he hang--" she stopped. "Before he, you know..." Mark stared blankly at her. "He smashed it?" "Ayah, I found him in front of it, broken glass from the tube on the carpet, chair on its side.. " He'd looped his belt around one of the notches in the ceiling beam of the family room, according to the local gossip, and from what Elizabeth had said about the television, Mark was sure the gossip had it right. The conversation lulled as the image of Harry McClusky's softly swaying corpse loomed above them. Mark almost fancied he could smell the man's final bowel movement coming from the mental tableau alone. He shuddered, gripping the silver remote in his hands until his knuckles turned white "The," Mark began, and had to clear his throat to dislodge a wad of phlegm from his tightened throat. "The pendulum clock, is it spoken for?" "No. I figured that would be the hardest thing to shift, actually, so I'm surprised you're even asking about it." "I've always loved that clock. The atmosphere. It's serviced?" Mark asked, caressing its side panel reverently. "Believe so," Elizabeth mused. "Harry tried to keep it in good repair. I'll let it go for four hundred if you want it." "Piece of history like this? I'd sooner pay you six." Mark murmered wryly. An invisible fish hook pulled one of Elizabeth's eyebrows skyward. "I'm pretty sure that's not how you haggle," she pointed out. "And I'm pretty sure the whole town just got an earful about brothers marrying their sisters," Mark said, "to remind us to do our part for those we know need a little extra support for the moment." "In law." "Hmm?" Mark asked. "Sisters *in law*" Elizabeth corrected. "But I catch your meaning. I'll not take a penny over five fifty, though." "You have yourself a deal," said Mark, and dug into his coat pocket for his checkbook.