Pop redundant concerned* * * Hey, it’s not a basement as such. It isn’t belowground. It’s more ground-level. I hope not. My grandma and grandpa are buried there. What happened next he remembered only as a blur of something long and sinewy. The huge rattlesnake coiled underneath his blanket lunged, aiming for the exposed flesh of his neck. The war club that knocked it aside was thrown from behind him, and Tanaqua followed it an instant later, grabbing the stunned snake by its head. I don’t think that man was good for you, Mom. After a long silence he said,“Okay. All right. I’ll be there.” ‘I am sorry, M. Deauville.’ I was such a sorry soul that it was hard to quantify. Crossing Christy’s threshold had been reckless in the extreme. I blamed the shock of the crash, or the emergency landing, and I blamed D. Hickey. I still do. ‘I don’t understand you.’ ‘Obviously.’ The baby seems younger today, her hand reaching out, grasping and ungrasping like a sea anemone. I pick up something I have read before, something especially short; I have the baby bound and burritoed in a thin blanket next to me, I position her on her side, so she can stare at the black-and-white notecards slotted between the sofa cushions, and she seems content, and I read the story again; the story,The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, is based on a Japanese myth at least 1,200 years old. She cut her eyes at him. For a moment her ever-changing countenance was that of a cunning fox.“To the blessed virgin, naturally!” she replied with the fervor of a choir girl, then crossed herself as the priests would have taught her. “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” she added, then nibbled at a piece of his jerky. I hid actively. It demanded intense concentration to sit tight. I actively willed myself into invisibility, erecting a force field with my mind, because the moment I stopped effacing my particles was the moment I would be found. By him. Deauville. He was on the prowl. Priests in the sixteenth century were small hunted men doing the job of a Hercules. No wonder the other team won. “That many fewer tax payments for those bastards in Parliament!” Burns boasted. Brenniv?n: An Icelandic schnapps flavored with caraway. Also known as“Black Death,” it is considered Iceland’s signature alcoholic drink. Sergeant Morris stepped in front of the young ranger.“Devon, git on with ye. Ye know nothing of such things.”. |