mother — it’s her fault. Your mother’s and your father’s. They should have been looking after him, not you.”
Tiny candles of satisfaction flared in me. It is good to have a friend who thinks the same as you. I said, “If you like burning things, there’s other things you could burn.”
He looked at me with interest. “Like what?”
I shrugged. “Lots of people have things. One boy at school — he knocked me over with his bike. It’s a new bike, it’s nice. He doesn’t even deserve it.”
Finnigan chewed a nail, musing on this. “Some things deserve to get burned.”
“Well, I don’t know.” I looked away. Maybe I had said too much. I didn’t want to be involved. “I just think that if you’re brave enough to burn the forest, you’re brave enough to do lots of things.”
He said nothing, looking elsewhere. He was hovering like a hawk above Mulyan, gazing down on a timber town.
Like an animal he kept his own schedule, and later when he vanished he left behind plucked petals and rose thorns. I did my best to sweep them up but my father discovered the damage, of course, and sniffed the rose scent on my palms. I took five cuts without protesting my innocence — I couldn’t prove Finnigan had been in the yard. More than that, I did not care to speak his name aloud.
Surrender and me head back into town. The forest wafts off my clothes and his fur. Decay and pine, thin freezing air. Mulyan is hushed on this cold afternoon, it’s a ghost-town of houses and roads. Behind the walls, though, there’ll be gossip, the tin roofs will be scorching. There’ll be biscuits and tea and enemies made sudden friends because they’re boiling over with gossip, tripping over their tongues.
Have you heard.
I know they found.
I don’t envy.
They’re saying it’s.
They’ll say
There but for the grace of God go I
, as if murder’s something that gets shared around nice and fair and square.
Mulyan is two rows of stores, one facing the other, rising over a hill that’s the crippler of old biddies and the curse of their pie-eyed sons. The shops get tatty over the rise, locked up, empty, fly husks at the glass. These dead stores say,
This town won’t last
. Well, nothing does.
In the lane behind the shops Surrender and me fossick. We’re just a pair of stray cats, spilling rubbish, prowling round. Whatever we find I put in my shirt, for eating or inspecting later. In the hills there’s many places we call home, hollow trees, wombat holes, shanties I’ve built using timber filched from the tray of the carpenter’s truck. Our booty is brought to these hidden places that even wild animals avoid.
Maybe I give the impression we don’t like company, living like this in the hills. Nothing, however, gives me greater pleasure than having a little chat. Some of Mulyan’s finest citizens have met me, including Gabriel’s mother and father. I don’t know who they thought I was, but they didn’t like my tone. I’ve spoken to the one that Gabriel calls Sarah, who took me in her stride. “Nice to meet you,” she actually said, and held out a hand.
Not everyone’s like that. Gabriel’s doctor, for instance, has no sense of humor. I met him once, years ago, when the angel was hardly ill — when, if he’d wanted, he could have shrugged off this dreary long-winded expiring. “That boy’s malingering,” I said, being funny, but the doctor simply went puce.
Laugh
: I nearly popped. My
favorite
person is Constable McIllwraith — any chance I get, I have a word with him. “Howyoudoin Eli?” I’ll say. Everyone in Mulyan likes him now, but there was once a time when they would have stoned him in the square. Back then they said he wasn’t up to the job, and hexed him when his back was turned. Then, I was one of the few friends he had, but he seems to have forgotten that now.
Plenty of others have heard from me. I’m fond of leaning over a sleeper and whispering in his ear, I like snickering and
Tiny candles of satisfaction flared in me. It is good to have a friend who thinks the same as you. I said, “If you like burning things, there’s other things you could burn.”
He looked at me with interest. “Like what?”
I shrugged. “Lots of people have things. One boy at school — he knocked me over with his bike. It’s a new bike, it’s nice. He doesn’t even deserve it.”
Finnigan chewed a nail, musing on this. “Some things deserve to get burned.”
“Well, I don’t know.” I looked away. Maybe I had said too much. I didn’t want to be involved. “I just think that if you’re brave enough to burn the forest, you’re brave enough to do lots of things.”
He said nothing, looking elsewhere. He was hovering like a hawk above Mulyan, gazing down on a timber town.
Like an animal he kept his own schedule, and later when he vanished he left behind plucked petals and rose thorns. I did my best to sweep them up but my father discovered the damage, of course, and sniffed the rose scent on my palms. I took five cuts without protesting my innocence — I couldn’t prove Finnigan had been in the yard. More than that, I did not care to speak his name aloud.
Surrender and me head back into town. The forest wafts off my clothes and his fur. Decay and pine, thin freezing air. Mulyan is hushed on this cold afternoon, it’s a ghost-town of houses and roads. Behind the walls, though, there’ll be gossip, the tin roofs will be scorching. There’ll be biscuits and tea and enemies made sudden friends because they’re boiling over with gossip, tripping over their tongues.
Have you heard.
I know they found.
I don’t envy.
They’re saying it’s.
They’ll say
There but for the grace of God go I
, as if murder’s something that gets shared around nice and fair and square.
Mulyan is two rows of stores, one facing the other, rising over a hill that’s the crippler of old biddies and the curse of their pie-eyed sons. The shops get tatty over the rise, locked up, empty, fly husks at the glass. These dead stores say,
This town won’t last
. Well, nothing does.
In the lane behind the shops Surrender and me fossick. We’re just a pair of stray cats, spilling rubbish, prowling round. Whatever we find I put in my shirt, for eating or inspecting later. In the hills there’s many places we call home, hollow trees, wombat holes, shanties I’ve built using timber filched from the tray of the carpenter’s truck. Our booty is brought to these hidden places that even wild animals avoid.
Maybe I give the impression we don’t like company, living like this in the hills. Nothing, however, gives me greater pleasure than having a little chat. Some of Mulyan’s finest citizens have met me, including Gabriel’s mother and father. I don’t know who they thought I was, but they didn’t like my tone. I’ve spoken to the one that Gabriel calls Sarah, who took me in her stride. “Nice to meet you,” she actually said, and held out a hand.
Not everyone’s like that. Gabriel’s doctor, for instance, has no sense of humor. I met him once, years ago, when the angel was hardly ill — when, if he’d wanted, he could have shrugged off this dreary long-winded expiring. “That boy’s malingering,” I said, being funny, but the doctor simply went puce.
Laugh
: I nearly popped. My
favorite
person is Constable McIllwraith — any chance I get, I have a word with him. “Howyoudoin Eli?” I’ll say. Everyone in Mulyan likes him now, but there was once a time when they would have stoned him in the square. Back then they said he wasn’t up to the job, and hexed him when his back was turned. Then, I was one of the few friends he had, but he seems to have forgotten that now.
Plenty of others have heard from me. I’m fond of leaning over a sleeper and whispering in his ear, I like snickering and
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