Little Treasures 6 Part I

I just realised how loooooong this chapter is, so I'm releasing it inparts. 

6. The Flawless Diamond (Part I)

June resumed her post as Dahlia's favourite child as soon as the ambulance carrying Great Aunt Emma's body turned out of sight. Emma's death gave Dahlia free reign to be as close to her children as possible, and Stanley's death was a foreshadowing of what could happen when she failed. Emma's funeral was an intimate affair, attended only by Dahlia, the girls, and the few friends Emma hadn't managed to frighten away. Even less mourners stayed for the reception, and those who did attend were only there for the gossip and caviar.

'Poor Emma,' said one woman, 'to die in the middle of the street, like a cat!'

'If the fur fits,' said another.

'Ladies,' giggled their newly-appointed leader, 'we must remember why we're here.'

'Yes,' said the second woman again, raising her champagne glass to the heavens, 'to thank God for ice trucks.'

The three of them cackled hysterically before they saw they were being watched and changed the subject to their dear friend's family.

'Isn't Dahlia just the portrait of the heartbroken niece?'

'She'll crack open that vault as soon as the will's read.'

This malicious speculation was correct; Dahlia did go straight from Emma's lawyer's office to the bank, but money wasn't what Dahlia was after. Emma's hard-wrangled savings were immediately withdrawn, and deposited into her niece's account as a matter of course, but the real prize as far as Dahlia was concerned was a small collection she's had her eye on since she was June's age.

Never the sentimental type, or particularly feminine for that matter, Emma didn't own much in the way of jewellery, and apart from the pearls that ended up littering the ashphalt when she died, the few trinkets she did amass were hidden away where they could be safely kept until they were worth at least double their purchase price. Determined to shun Emma's example, Dahlia stood back once the vault was opened and waited for the girls to take their pick. Shirley made a beeline for something, but then June got to it first so she had to settle for her great grandmother's wedding and engagement rings. Stella didn't go in for all that girlish nonsense, and was happy just to stand back and watch. The thing that drew June in from the moment the door was opened, the thing for which she had practically tackled her eldest sister to the ground, was an unassuming little creature with a shimmering fat belly. Dahlia grinned. She had only seen the Daschund brooch once, when her mother let her wear it on her eighth birthday.

Dahlia had long coveted the little fellow, and she wore it with pride on the lapel of her party dress until a rather rough boy bowled her over in the middle of a spirited game of tag, and the closest thing Dahlia ever had to a pet was sent hurtling into the punch bowl. Dahlia's mother retrieved it and forbade her to wear it until she grew up and learned how to take care of it, but when Dahlia's eighteenth birthday did come around, her mother had been suffering the symptoms of what she called the family curse for two years, and didn't recognize her daughter anymore.

Just as the cancer waged the final battle in its campaign to claim Victoria, Emma came to stay. Her sister needed comfort, her niece needed guidance, and the family estate needed a caretaker who wasn't mired down with emotion. The dacshsund was a symbol of this weakness; even as her mind was being eaten away, Victoria insisted that the brooch was always pinned to her, and that she must be buried with it so that her husband would be able to recognize her when they met again. Emma didn't believe in the afterlife, and as such had no reason whatsoever to be held accountable for anything she did, so it was with no qualms that she insisted upon a closed casket service, despite Victoria's wishes.

'This dreadful scourge sapped your dear mother of so much while she was alive, don't allow to rob her of her dignity.'

Victoria went into social seclusion when the disease took hold, and the thought of changind the outside world's lasting impression of her mother from ethereal beauty to premature cadaver was enough to convince Dahlia that her aunt was right. Her mother was laid to rest with the same quiet reverance with which she had been regarded in life. Were Dahlia raised a town child, in the sort of home where family members showed affection for one another, Aunt Emma would've raised her arm and given her niece a solitary squeeze, but theirs was not a town family, so the opportunity for Dahlia to see the tiny bulge in her aunt's sleeve never presented itself, and the little dog with the glittering coat was shunted into an airless kennel, where he would languish until he was adopted by someone who, for a short time, would love him just as much as his previous mistress. Dahlia eventually figured it out, of course, but said nothing to Emma. Confronting Emma with her thievery would achieve nothing beyond making her dig in her heels deeper, and Dahlia wanted to be sure the daschund wouyld be there waiting for her when the old bitch died. She also swore the girls to secrecy, telling them how important it was that Emma go on thinking she was the boss for just a little while longer, and that they would be rewarded for it.

Everywhere June went, the dog went too, clasped to her person like the faithful companion on which he was modelled. At first, Dahlia worried that the other children would be jealous of her little girl, or that someone might try to steal it with her attached, but these fears soon melted away. June was herself again, and if the brooch was even partly responsible for that, she could damn well wear it to bed if she wanted to. There was no real danger of any of June's classmates fighting her for the brooch - every child at her school was as impeccably raised as she was, and wouldn't dare give anyone reason to think otherwise - but that didn't stop them from feeling jealous, not when June encouraged it. She flitted about the schoolyard, boldly extolling the virtues of owning such a high quality piece of jewellery.

'The higher the quality of the carats, the higher the quality of the lady.'

It was an innocent enough remark, made in the Shakesperean tone children often adopt when trying to sound important, and it went largely ignored by her classmates, who were used to June's theatricality. But there was one person wathcing to whom the brooch's owner was a dazzling gem herself. 

Ewan Finn was practiced at being invisible. He arrived at work an hour before the headmaster of any of the teachers, and two hours before the gaggle of privelleged children tramped down the walkway that would be littered with all manner of natural debris were it not for him. Keeping the school grounds immaculate wasn't just a job for Ewan Finn; it was a passion. If every person on God's green Earth was created with a purpose, his was to maintain and protect the world around him or, at least, the portion of it that had been assigned to him. In his ten years as grounds keeper at Warton Academy for Girls, not a single blade of grass had grown beyond its requisite height, and Ewan was justifiably proud of this, but the secret to achieving such a gloriously uniform lawn was one he would never divulge, not even if the head of the schoolboard himself came knocking.

Every patch of green that surrounded the school - all twenty two acres - were mapped out. Not on a large sheet of paper pinned to the garden shed, or on a notepad tucked into his pocket, but in his head. The reason he couldn't afford to put his genius on display was that it might serve as evidence that he was what his poor dead mother used to call "Gone in the head."

Every blade of grass was numbered. Numbers were the only constant in an otherwise uncivilized world. Numbers regulated people's lives, ensured that everythng on Earth ran smoothly. They were the only true measure of beauty, and thanks to the Pythagorean theory, Ewan knew the figure to look for when it came to determining the measurements for the perfect face. He didn't know whether to rage or rejoice: he'd been searching for his magic number, hadn't looked at a female as anything other than a column of figures for twenty-five years, only to find it balancing on the shoulders of a ten-year-old girl.

It never occured to him to even glance at the young ones; they were still growing and as such their faces were still taking shape but, young or not, June Thomas was the one. If he moved in the same circles as the parents whose children he cleaned up after, Ewan could take his quest around the world but the life with which God saw fit to bless him didn't accomodate such a luxury. A face like June's would not come along again, so Ewan did the only thing he could do for the moment; he watched and waited. Watched her prancing about the schoolyard with her snotty little friends, most of whom seemed to be terrified of her, and he silently willed her to make the most of what little time she had left. 

Over the course of a year, her rosy cheeks would lose a little of their plumpness. Over five, her nose would elongate. In ten, she would be a woman, and any trace of the divine creature she once was would be erased by time, God, and cosmetics. Ewan needed to stop all that. He needed a plan.