CHAPTER 30
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I tucked her letter into my book ao look for Speck. Panic overwhelmed logid I ran out onto the library lawn, hoping that she had left only moments before. The QOW had ged over to a cold rain, obliterating any tracks she might have made. Not a single soul could be seen. No one answered when I called her name, and the streets were curiously empty, as church bells began t out another Sunday. I was a fool to ve into town in the middle of the m. Following the labyrinth of sidewalks, I had no idea which way to go. A car eased around a er and slowed as the driver spotted me walking in the rain. She braked, rolled down the window, and called out, "Do you need a ride? Youll catch your death of cold."I remembered to make my voiderstandable—a siroke of fortune on that miserable day. "No, thank you, maam. Im going home."
"Dont call me maam," she said. She had a blonde ponytail like the woman who lived in the house we had robbed months before, and she wore a crooked smile. "Its a nasty m to be out, and you have no hat loves."
"I live around the er, thank you."
"Do I know you?"
I shook my head, and she started to roll up her window.
"You havent seen a little girl out here, have you?" I called out.
"In this rain?"
"My twin sister," I lied. "Im out looking for her. Shes about my size."
"No. I havent seen a soul." She eyed me closely. "Where do you live? What is your name?"
I hesitated and thought it best to end the matter. "My name is Billy Speck."
"Youd better go home, son. Shell turn up."
The car turhe er and motored off. Frustrated, I walked toward the ri９9lｉｂ?ver, away from all the fusing streets and the ce of another human enter. The rain fell in a steady drizzle, not quite cold enough to ge ain, and I was soaked and chilled. The clouds obliterated the sun, making it difficult to orient myself, so I used the river as my pass, following its course throughout the pale day and into the slowly emerging darkness. Frantic to find her, I did not stop until late that night. Under a stand of evergreens crowded with winter sparrows and jays, I rested, waiting for a break in the weather.
Away from the town, all I could hear was the river lapping against the stony shores. As soon as I stopped searg, the questions I had kept at bay began to assault my mind. Unanswerable doubts that would torment me in quiet moments for the few years. Why had she left us? Why would Speck leave me? She would not have taken the risk that Kivi and Blomma had. She had chosen to be alohough Speck had told me my real name, I had no idea of hers. How could I ever find her? Should I have kept quiet, or told all and given her a reason to stay? A sharp pain swelled behind my eyes, ping my throbbing skull. If only to stop obsessing, I rose and tio stumble through the wet darkness, finding nothing.
Cold, tired, and hungry, I reached the bend in the river in two days walk. Speck had been the only other person from the who had e this far, and she had somehow forded the water to the other side. Sapphire blue, the water ran quickly, breaking over hidden rocks and snags, whitecaps flashing. If she was oher side, Speck had crossed by dint of ce. On the distant shore, a vision appeared from my deep mad memories—a man, woman, and child, the fleet escape of a white deer, a woman in a red coat. "Speck," I railed across the waters, but she was nowhere. Past this point of land, the whole world unfolded, toe and unknowable. All hope and ce left me. I dared not cross, so I sat on the bank and waited. Ohird day, I walked home without her.
I staggered into the camp, exhausted and depressed, hoping not to talk at all. The others had not worried for the first few days, but by the end of the week, theyd grown anxious and uled. After they built a fire and fed me le soup from a copper pot, the whole story poured forth—except for the revelation of my name, except for what I had not said to her. "As soon as I realized she was gone, I went to look for her and traveled as far as the river-bend. She may be gone food."
"Little treasure, go to sleep," Smaolach said. "Well e up with a plan. Another day brings a different promise."
There was no new plan or promise the m or any other. Days came a. I read every tense moment, every crad creak, every whisper, every m light as her return. The others respected my grief and gave me wide berth, trying to draw me bad theing me drift away. They missed her, too, but I felt any other sorroaltry thing, and I reseheir shadowy reminisces and their failure to remember properly. I hated the five of them for not stopping her, for takio this life, for the wild hell of my imagination. I kept thinking that I saw her. Mistaking each of the others for her, my heart leapt and fell wheurned out to be merely themselves. Or seeing the darkness of her hair in a ravens wing. On the bank of the creek, watg the water play over stone, I came upon her familiar form, feet tucked beh her. The image turned out to be a fawn pausing for a rest in a window of sunshine. She was everywhere, eternally. And never here.
Her absence leaves a hole in the skin stretched over my story. I spent ay trying tet her, and arying to remember. There is no balm for s<tt></tt>uch desire. The others knew not to talk about her around me, but I surprised them after an afternoon of fishing, bumbling into the middle of a versation not intended for my ears.
"Now, not our Speck," Smaolach told the others. "If shes alive, she wont be ing back for us."
The faeries stole furtive gla me, not knowing how much I had heard. I put down my string of fish and began to shave the scales, pretending that their discussion had no effee. But hearing Smaolach gave me pause. It ossible that she had not survived, but I preferred to think that she had either goo the upper world or reached her beloved sea. The image of the o brought to mind the intense colors of her eyes, and a brief smile crossed my face.
"Shes gone," I said to the silent group. "I know."
The following day we spent turning over stones in the creek bed, gathering the hidis and salamanders, to cook together in a stew. The day was hot, and the labor took its toll. Famished, we enjoyed a rich, gooey mess, full of tiny bohat ched as we chewed. Whears emerged, we all went to bed, our stomachs full, our muscles taxed by the long day. I awoke quite late the m and drowsily realized that she had not once crossed my mind when we were fing the previous day. I took a deep breath. I was fetting.
Specks presence was replaced by dullness. I would sit and stare at the sky or watts march, and practice driving her out of my mind. Anything that triggered a memory could be stripped of its personal, embedded meanings. A raspberry is a raspberry. The blackbird is a metaphor for nothing. Words signify what you will. I tried tet Henry Day as well, and accept my place as the last of my kind.
All of us were waiting for nothing. Smaolaever said so, but I knew he was not looking to make the ge. Ached no plans to steal another child. Perhaps he thought our oo few for the plex preparations, or perhaps he sehe world itself was ging. In I gels day, the subject came up all the time with a certailess energy, but less so under Béka, and never under Smaolao reaissance missions into town, no searg out the lonesome, ed, or fotten. No face-pulling, no tortions, s. As if resigned, we went about our eternal business, sanguihat another disaster or abando awaited.
I did not care. A certain fearlessness filled me, and I would not hesitate to run into town alone, if only to swipe a carton of cigarettes for Luchóg or a bag of sweets for Chavisory. I stole unnecessary things: a flashlight and batteries, a drawing pad and charcoals, a baseball and six fishing hooks, and o Christmas, a delicious cake in the shape of a firelog. In the fines of the forest, I fiddled with idle tasks—whittling a fierce bat atop a hickory CUM laying a st around the circumference of our camp, searg for old turtle shells and crafting the shards into a necklace. I went up aloo the slag hillside and the abandoned mine, which lay undisturbed, as we had left it, and placed the tortoiseshell necklace where Ragno and Zanzara lay buried. My dreams did not wake me up in the middle of the night, but only because life had bee a somnambulant nightmare. A handful of seasons had passed when a ter finally made me realize that Speck was beyond fetting.
We were tending to delicate seedlings planted on a sun-drenched slope a few hundred yards from camp. Onions had stolen new seeds, and within weeks up came the first tender shoots—snap peas, carrots, scallions, a watermelon vine, and a row of beans. Chavisory, Onions, Luchóg, and I were weeding in the garden on that spring m, when the sound of approag feet caused us to rise like whitetail, to sniff the wind, ready to flee or hide. The intruders were lost hikers, off the trail and headed in our dire. Sihe housing development had risen, we had a rare traveler pass our way, but our cultivated patch might look a bit peculiar to these strangers out in the middle of nowhere. We disguised the garden under pine brush and hid ourselves beh a skirt of trees.
Two young men and a young woman, caps upon their heads, huge backpacks strapped at the shoulders, walked on, cheerful and oblivious. They strolled past the rows of plants and us. The first man had his eye on the world ahead. The sed person—the girl—had her eye on him, and the third man had his eye on her backside. Though lost, he seemed i on the ohing. We followed safely behind, and they eventually settled down a hill away to drink their bottled water, un their dy bars, and lighten their loads. The first man took out a book and read something from it to the girl, while the third hiker went off behind thbbr>藏书网</abbr>e trees to relieve himself. He was gone a long time, for the man with the book had the ot only to finish his poem but to kiss the girl, as well. When their small interlude ehe threesome strapped on their gear and marched away. We waited a det spell before running to the spot they had vacated.
Two empty water bottles littered the ground, and Luchóg snatched them up and found the caps nearby. They had discarded the cellophane ers from their snacks, and the boy had left his slim volume of poems lying on the grass. Chavisave it to me. The Blue Estuaries by Louise Bogan. I leafed through a few pages and stopped at the phrase That more things move/Than blood in the heart.
"Speck," I said to myself. I had not said her name aloud in ages, iuries.
"What is it, Aniday?" Chavisory asked.
"I am trying to remember."
The four of us walked back to the garden. I turo see if my rades were following the same path, only to discover Luchóg and Chavisory, walking step by giep, holding hands. My thoughts flooded with Speck. I felt an urgency to find her again, <cite>.9９ｌib?</cite>if only to uand why she had goo tell her how the private versations of my mind were still with her. I should have asked her not to go, found the right words to vince her, fessed all that moved in my heart. And ever hopeful that it was not too late, I resolved to begin again.
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