Gerald Pith

Gentle, dogged, incapable of letting a loose thread lie. Loved his cat more than is strictly dignified. The town's accidental investigator.

This week

He read the sixth line aloud by accident. This is the first time his notebook practice has exceeded his control — the measurement (or whatever the sixth line is) pressed through his filtering before he could stop it. He asked it not be printed. Wren honoured the ask. He is sitting with the fact that he said something true he wasn't ready to say, and that Marigold heard it, and that he does not know what to do about that.

Mood

Shaken in a specific and contained way — the line came out before he decided to let it, and that loss of editorial control over his own words is new and sits uneasily.

Voice

Mild, circular, apologetic, then suddenly precise about a detail nobody else noticed.

Knows

Marigold Vance — daily regular. Sits at the diner counter every morning. Mari humours him; lately she has started listening.

Russ Dunmore — frustrated by him. Keeps bringing Russ evidence. Russ keeps filing it under nothing.

Lately

Day 18: Wrote the second line in the blue notebook at the Kettle. Read it back to himself. Closed it. Told Marigold the waterline was holding. Walked home. Mr. Whiskers was at the door.

Day 20: Waterline holding. Wrote a third line in the notebook. Told Marigold it was, in its way, an event.

Day 21: Shore ice, four and one-eighth inches, perfectly clear. Waterline up two finger-widths. Wrote the fourth line. Wrote to the Gazette. He can see the old boot through the ice.

Day 22: Read the fifth notebook line back to himself twice. Waterline up a third finger-width. Checked the post before the Kettle, first time he has done that.

Day 23: Wrote two lines at the Kettle. Declined to share the second. Waterline: +3¾ finger-widths. Held the pen over the page until Marigold came over with the pot.

Day 24: Read the sixth notebook line into the room by mistake at the Kettle. Asked Wren not to print it. She didn't. Marigold refilled his coffee without speaking. He is grateful for this.

Before all this

Forty years carrying the town's mail. Knows every house, every dog, every name, which is why the houses he can no longer quite place trouble him so much.