tinged with silver.
He stood, heart racing, and was struck by the silence.
No car passed on the road. Not a person moved behind the dark windows of the distant houses. The breeze had died and the blade grass had lost its lizard hiss. The crickets no longer chirruped, as if even they were afraid to announce their hiding places. The sky was pale and hot as a kiln.
Nicholas suddenly felt dreadfully alive in all this stillness. Brilliantly alive with something so very dead beside him. He felt his heartbeats were as loud as drums, traveling for miles. He was alive and small and terrifyingly alone.
With the woods just a few feet away.
He knew he had to go—now. He kicked the bird and its strange woven head into the grass and grabbed his backpack. He shoved his arm into the loop, missed, shoved again, missed again. His vision was edged with glutinous, dizzy stars. Finally, he got his arm through the strap, and straightened just as the silence was broken.
The grass crunched behind him.
Deep slices through the dry grass. Heavy, deliberate footfalls. Stealthy and close. The stagnant air had suddenly thickened with the odor of sweet rot, alive as the cloying whiff around the top of an old septic tank. Tangy and ugly. Something was coming up behind him. Something from the woods.
Bright white terror filled him. His adrenal gland poured its juice into his blood and his heart galloped and his small legs tensed and sprang … Run!
Without turning, he flew.
Chapter 4 2007
O n the fourth morning after Nicholas returned home from London, the rain had gone. The cloudless morning sky was the brittle blue of arctic ice, and aberrant winds dragged the temperature down to just above freezing. The chill whispered its way between the wall boards and the loose casement windows of Suzette’s bedroom.
Nicholas woke feeling more buoyant than he had for a long time. The slope-shouldered weariness that always arrived a moment after waking—when he confirmed that he was alive and Cate was dead and London was muddling gray and busy regardless—didn’t come. He sat up. The sun was still below the horizon, but he could see how the cold winds had scrubbed the sky clean and the day would be beautiful and bright. He felt the best he had since Cate died.
Knowing this delicate feeling of warm neutrality could easily slip away, he decided to do something to prolong the pleasantness as long as he could. He pulled on his jeans, hooded cardigan, and yesterday’s socks. He would walk the streets of his childhood suburb and drum up a breakfast appetite.
The Closes’ house at 68 Lambeth Street was a bulldog of a building with beige weatherboard flanks hunched on stumps and scowling down the hill at its neighbors. The wrought-iron gate opened silently, its hinge spikes still damp from last night’s rain.
Nicholas set out into the brisk wind. The walking felt good and easy. He was tall and lean; striding down the hill and forcing his enervated blood to move seemed to improve his already fair mood. He’d been away and, yes, terrible things had happened, but now he was home. New choices were possible. He could get fit. He could get a job. He could start again.
As he walked, he saw that his impression last night that his childhood suburb had been locked in time was wrong. Some things had changed during his absence. Sentences of clapboard Queenslanders were punctuated by malapropos Tuscan-styled villas. The Sheehans’ house was gone, replaced by a two-story block of flats. A tiny roundabout, its axis a bright fountain of yellow verbena, had been installed where Lambeth and Crittendon Streets crossed. But most of the original houses remained, refreshed dames under new paint seated coyly behind neat gardens.
The sun crested the horizon, and treetops were lit a mild gold. Nicholas breathed deeply. The stiff breeze brought fragrant snatches of wisteria. This was good. Life had gone on without him. Things did change. People survived.
He
He stood, heart racing, and was struck by the silence.
No car passed on the road. Not a person moved behind the dark windows of the distant houses. The breeze had died and the blade grass had lost its lizard hiss. The crickets no longer chirruped, as if even they were afraid to announce their hiding places. The sky was pale and hot as a kiln.
Nicholas suddenly felt dreadfully alive in all this stillness. Brilliantly alive with something so very dead beside him. He felt his heartbeats were as loud as drums, traveling for miles. He was alive and small and terrifyingly alone.
With the woods just a few feet away.
He knew he had to go—now. He kicked the bird and its strange woven head into the grass and grabbed his backpack. He shoved his arm into the loop, missed, shoved again, missed again. His vision was edged with glutinous, dizzy stars. Finally, he got his arm through the strap, and straightened just as the silence was broken.
The grass crunched behind him.
Deep slices through the dry grass. Heavy, deliberate footfalls. Stealthy and close. The stagnant air had suddenly thickened with the odor of sweet rot, alive as the cloying whiff around the top of an old septic tank. Tangy and ugly. Something was coming up behind him. Something from the woods.
Bright white terror filled him. His adrenal gland poured its juice into his blood and his heart galloped and his small legs tensed and sprang … Run!
Without turning, he flew.
Chapter 4 2007
O n the fourth morning after Nicholas returned home from London, the rain had gone. The cloudless morning sky was the brittle blue of arctic ice, and aberrant winds dragged the temperature down to just above freezing. The chill whispered its way between the wall boards and the loose casement windows of Suzette’s bedroom.
Nicholas woke feeling more buoyant than he had for a long time. The slope-shouldered weariness that always arrived a moment after waking—when he confirmed that he was alive and Cate was dead and London was muddling gray and busy regardless—didn’t come. He sat up. The sun was still below the horizon, but he could see how the cold winds had scrubbed the sky clean and the day would be beautiful and bright. He felt the best he had since Cate died.
Knowing this delicate feeling of warm neutrality could easily slip away, he decided to do something to prolong the pleasantness as long as he could. He pulled on his jeans, hooded cardigan, and yesterday’s socks. He would walk the streets of his childhood suburb and drum up a breakfast appetite.
The Closes’ house at 68 Lambeth Street was a bulldog of a building with beige weatherboard flanks hunched on stumps and scowling down the hill at its neighbors. The wrought-iron gate opened silently, its hinge spikes still damp from last night’s rain.
Nicholas set out into the brisk wind. The walking felt good and easy. He was tall and lean; striding down the hill and forcing his enervated blood to move seemed to improve his already fair mood. He’d been away and, yes, terrible things had happened, but now he was home. New choices were possible. He could get fit. He could get a job. He could start again.
As he walked, he saw that his impression last night that his childhood suburb had been locked in time was wrong. Some things had changed during his absence. Sentences of clapboard Queenslanders were punctuated by malapropos Tuscan-styled villas. The Sheehans’ house was gone, replaced by a two-story block of flats. A tiny roundabout, its axis a bright fountain of yellow verbena, had been installed where Lambeth and Crittendon Streets crossed. But most of the original houses remained, refreshed dames under new paint seated coyly behind neat gardens.
The sun crested the horizon, and treetops were lit a mild gold. Nicholas breathed deeply. The stiff breeze brought fragrant snatches of wisteria. This was good. Life had gone on without him. Things did change. People survived.
He
Similar Books
