Phone substantial smileHow I wish that snow could have covered my wretched tracks to the old folks’ home at Grund when I went to tell him the news at the start of summer. How I wish that I could erase the scene when I pretended I’d come to ask for my dad’s advice when I’d already decided to move east for the winter. No one knows precisely where the crater is, precisely where the lava spews up out of the earth. It’s impossible to pinpoint, like the craters in the volcanic zones of our souls. “I don’t understand what . . .” Duncan began, then his heart blocked his throat. It was the fossil from the ancient altar. Duncan had given him his own seed stone, and Jahoska had given him that of his people. He squeezed it tightly in his hand and turned to face the bay as moisture filled his eyes. The gift seemed to break something inside. A new wave of emotion surged through him. He felt a profound melancholy, but something new was burning now, deep inside. My mother never got tired of the question. She’d always answer, “You have to wash ’em sometimes, baby; otherwise they get all stinky and stiff.” phone substantial smile Every morning, as a favor for my landlady, Widow Dumont, I went to the bakery to buy croissants for breakfast and, on Sunday mornings,petits pains au chocolat. One Sunday I had to find somewhere new, because the bakery on the corner was closed for the summer. As I walked past the sailing shop, I happened to drop the glass bottle of mineral water I was holding. It shattered on the street, and as I gathered up the pieces, I cut my finger. Gabriel Axel saw this from his apartment, which is above the shop, and he invited me in and bandaged me up. I was in a rush, because I knew Widow Dumont wouldn’t be happy if she had to wait too long for herpetits pains au chocolat, which would no longer be warm, not to mention the Sunday edition ofLe Figaro. But Gabriel Axel asked where I came from. You should have seen his face when I said Iceland. How did you meet him? phone substantial smile Phyllis’s designs were craftier than the clothes made for New York and Parisian models. A thirty-three-year-old mother of two with fifteen extra pounds and less than perfect skin could don one of this shop’s offerings and go to a church or temple fund-raiser with confidence and even hints of beauty. Half an hour later Duncan and the governor entered Hawley’s establishment, followed by Dickinson, Conawago, and Tanaqua. Amused by the contrast of our type of hunting and hunting as it is practised in England, for example, I mentioned one day, in the course of a mundane conversation, that it would be lovely to show Eaton Hall to the retinue Westminster maintained in the Landes. Straight away, the thirty Frenchmen, grooms and whippers-in, stepped ashore, having spent the night in the English Channel. He travelled the seas like a monarch, as the white Royal Navy ensign was saluted by warships and fluttered over the underground lakes of oil in Gibraltar. I notice Hei?ur’s temper flare. It’s clear what she wants to do. Punch the girl. I want to, too. It doesn’t bode well. Duncan gazed at her in confusion, then pulled out the little flag again.“The castle and the woods!” he exclaimed. Woolford leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.“I don’t know,” he continued in a choked voice. “We sat in his library. He said he had received a devastating letter from Franklin.” “I can sympathize,” Kush said. “Here. Why don’t you take my bike? I’ll pick it up next week when your brother’s around.” Duncan ignored the knife in his hand.“I know this man,” he said in surprise. “I sat with him once at the fire of the Great Council. His name was Red Jacob, of the Oneida people.” My dad could therefore be called Lofty Lion, Young Toe.. |