Chapters (97)
- Cover
- Back Cover Text
- Praise
- Booklist
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Seventy-One
- Seventy-Two
- Seventy-Three
- Seventy-Four
- Seventy-Five
- Seventy-Six
- Seventy-Seven
- Seventy-Eight
- Seventy-Nine
- Eighty
- Eighty-One
- Eighty-Two
- Eighty-Three
- Eighty-Four
- Eighty-Five
- Eighty-Six
- Eighty-Seven
- Eighty-Eight
- Eighty-Nine
- Acknowledgments & A Personal Note
- Excerpt
“When you murder someone, they never die. You watch their life drain from their eyes, feel the last pulse of their heart, their last desperate gasp. But the dead never stay dead. They live in your nightmares, haunting you for the rest of your life, because of what you did and what you are.”
—From the confidential diary of a young killer, “Girl B”
Eternity: The Story of Homicide in a Small Town by Benjamin Grant
One
Eternity, Manitoba
2000
Waiting to die. Or dying to get out.
Those seemed like your only choices when fate had dumped you in a small, prairie town where nothing happened and your secret torment burned like a lit fuse.
That’s how it was for Janie, Nikki and Marie, best friends born in and, as Nikki said, condemned to, Eternity.
The rest of civilization was at least a two-hour drive east in the metropolis of Winnipeg. Saskatchewan was about an hour west. Nothing to see there but the sky and land so flat you’d think you were driving to the edge of the world.
Drive south for about an hour and you’d see rolling hills, or what some people called mountains, until you came to the North Dakota border. If you really wanted to push things, you could spend a day getting to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
If you were Janie, Nikki and Marie, growing up in Eternity, there was nowhere to go. You were a prisoner, yearning for something, anything, to happen.
They’d all just turned fourteen in the previous months. It was the summer that preceded high school. A fact they were pondering on another scorching day while they considered things to do as they walked through town.
The Windflower Mall was out because last month the clerks at the drug mart had suspected Nikki of shoplifting eyeliner. They couldn’t prove it because she’d deftly dropped the evidence in an old lady’s bag. Still, security called police. Nikki wasn’t charged but they took her fingerprints and her picture, and under some law or rule, banned her from the building for six months. Nikki took it as both a badge of honor and an affront that stoked the rage forever bubbling under her skin. For as long as Janie and Marie had known her, Nikki seemed to be at war with the world, carrying a deep, invisible wound.
“They can ban me for all my life—I don’t care,” Nikki said. “We see the same people at the food court, nothing to do there but laugh at seniors, Hutterites and cripples.”
Besides, Nikki boasted, she’d stolen enough makeup from that place to last years and she piled it on to create the mask she hid behind. With her quickly maturing body, she looked older than Janie and Marie, who believed her claim that she was no longer a virgin.