(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)
© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
4
Years went by. Nobody killed anybody, nobody died. I got a little sister. They called her Greta. And they were all happy together, the three of them, like cookies and ice-cream. But I didn’t get any.
AFTER BJORN married Rayn, White Quill changed. It didn’t even look the same, though you’d have a hard time saying how. The big bedroom was kept locked and not even Bjorn went in there anymore. He slept with Rayn in the middle bedroom, though the room showed no sign of him and they all called it Rayn’s room. Men came and sealed off the master bath from the big bedroom and opened it to Rayn’s room instead. She had them redo all the fixtures and put in a big red tub. Their daughter Greta slept in the small bedroom across the hall.
That left no place for the boy, so Falco was put in a room in the attic at the top of those twisting narrow stairs. The room held an old dusty washstand, a small iron cot, and cardboard boxes under the bed where Falco kept his clothes.
He made his own toys with bits of cardboard and paper he got out of the garbage. He pulled Rayn’s fashion magazines out of the recycling and looked at the pictures of pretty women. They were all smiling and laughing like Rayn. He pasted their faces onto cardboard bird shapes and hung them on strings. When the wind blew into the window, the birds danced around over his head. He lay on the cot and stared up at the birds and how they flew under the ceiling.
He spent a lot of time in his room. He supposed he did a lot of bad things, because Rayn was always sending him to his room.
If he stood on the end of his cot on the iron foot bar, he could see the back yard through his window. He could see the water and the end of the lawn and the Juniper Tree standing guard at the Beak. Whenever he looked out the window, the Juniper Tree nodded back to say Hello. Falco waved back but he didn’t tell anybody about it. He didn’t tell them much.
The rain fell and the sun shone on the Juniper Tree. Birds sang in his branches. They sang sad songs, lonely and mournful and hurting.
Falco put pictures of birds on the walls when he found them in the magazines. He used to dream about birds sometimes. He dreamed he could fly. But he couldn’t.
Sometimes he cut out pictures of kids in the magazines. He took the pictures into the bathroom with him and he looked at the pictures and then he looked at his face in the mirror over the sink. He was eight years old – he only got to be eight before it happened. He looked at the pictures of the kids, all fat and happy in clothes from the ads. Falco didn’t look like them. But sometimes he found pictures from articles about other countries where there was some disaster or something and everybody died. They had pictures of kids starving and dirty. They were more like him. He couldn’t read the articles too well but he thought they were all about the people who went flying around the world giving those kids food and new houses and clothes and whatever they wanted. He used to wish somebody would fly around here and give him food and clothes and a new house. He knew it wouldn’t happen.
His room was once a cabinet or closet up under the rafters. The cot was tucked under the eaves with just a space between the door and the window. That was okay so long as nobody came in and slapped him or nothing.
He used to save scraps of bread in his pockets. He found a tin pie plate in the attic and he put it on the windowsill with crumbs on it and opened the window. Rayn said it was a dirty habit and Falco was a dirty boy and she was ashamed of him. She told him to shut the window and keep it shut, all sorts of nasty things could come in, but he left it open anyway when he thought she wouldn’t find out.
Sometimes a bird came to picked at the crumbs.
Falco sat on the cot and stared at the bird.
The bird cocked his head. Falco cocked his head.
Downstairs he could hear Rayn singing. That’s why he didn’t want to go down.
Fridays were bad days. Rayn was prettiest on Friday, she laughed a lot and smiled and put on extra perfume and wore naughty things all day. Friday they sent Falco home from school early, and he had to be alone with Rayn all afternoon. But Saturdays were worse.
On Saturday Falco’s dad still went to work all day but there wasn’t any school at all. And all day long Rayn had her eye on him. All the bad things she said he did on Friday just to make her mad, she saved them all for Saturday.
For awhile Falco lay on the floor inside his door and looked down through the rails. From there he could just peek into Rayn’s bedroom.
She was singing and stripping her bed. Rayn did wash on Saturday. Her sheets were hot pink with roses and flames sewn in. Greta was in there too. She was always hanging around. She must have been four then. She was probably playing on the floor with her dinosaur toys. She got all the toys she wanted.
Greta was pretty, but she was chubby on account of they fed her so much. She used to go around all the time in designer dresses even when she was just playing. That was all right with Falco. She was a girl. She was okay, he didn’t have anything against her except she cried so easy. It wouldn’t take anything to start her bawling. Then he usually got a slap and Rayn would pick up Greta and hold her and kiss her over and over. Falco never saw the point in crying. It didn’t get him anywhere.
He listened to Rayn singing. Her voice was something. Back then he was half in love with her. When he heard her singing like that he had to sneak downstairs and hang on the railing so he could spy deeper into her room. He could see her bending over her Trunk, still singing.
‘Would you like a sweet, little goose? A special, special sweet from my Mommie’s Trunk?’
She gave Greta a piece of candy or something from far away. Greta played with it.
‘Did you know you have a rich Daddy? Yes! He’s Mr Money Bags! And because you’re such a pretty girl, he loves you best of all!’
She put the sheets in the basket, plopped Greta on top and carried her downstairs, singing all the way.
Falco ducked back out of sight until it was safe to sneak down after them.
Downstairs the Thanksgiving decorations were already up. Rayn put the basket by the Morris chair. It had a sign on it, the sign they put on it every Thanksgiving:
The
Thanksgiving
King
Greta tried to climb up the chair. Rayn kissed her again.
‘Well now! What a clever girl you are! You know what that is, don’t you? That’s your chair! That’s the chair for the Thanksgiving King! Two weeks to Thanksgiving, and then you’ll get to sit in it, just you and you and you!’
She tumbled Greta back into the basket and carried her out the door.
Out in the sun Rayn hung her sheets on the clotheslines. The wind made the sheets billow like flags or sails or big tongues of fire. Rayn’s dress billowed too, bright like fire.
Falco crept under the porch. It was covered with crossed white laths so they couldn’t see him. He hung on the laths like on bars on a cage and watched them.
When she had the sheets up, Rayn started hanging up her naughty things. Her underthings and such. Greta played in the grass with her dinosaurs. Greta was nuts for dinosaurs. They gave her a set that was all bones of dinosaurs and she tried to snap them together but she never got the shape right and the head usually ended up on the tail or something like that.
When everything was up, Rayn put Greta in the empty basket and took her back inside. Her high heels stabbed the porch boards over Falco’s head. He was thinking about coming out when the porch door creaked open again and she came out with the dog.
Tang-Tang was always growling at Falco and trying to bite him. He had a lot of scars from the white dog. When Tang-Tang bit Falco, Rayn would laugh and give him a dog-cookie and let him lick her face. So when she brought him out, Falco crawled back under the porch as far as he could.
But the white dog went bounding after her. She lured him across the yard, away from the Juniper Tree to the landing on the cliff. Tang-Tang ran on down the steps in front of her, but Rayn paused and looked back at the house and smiled. Falco was at the lath cage then but he pulled back when she looked. He thought she was looking at him. But he must have guessed wrong, because she didn’t come back and scold him, she just skipped down the steps.
After a while it seemed safe so he came out. He went over to the clothesline and looked up at Rayn’s things dancing in the wind. She had the prettiest things and they always smelled like nothing else in the world.
Then he went over to the Juniper Tree.
‘Hello, Juniper Tree,’ he said.
The Juniper Tree bowed to him.
Sometimes Falco tried to look into the Juniper Tree and see what its face looked like. He was sure the tree had a face but he could never make it out. But sometimes he could feel what its face would’ve looked like if he could’ve seen it. Sometimes Falco knew the Juniper Tree was smiling, and sometimes he knew it was frowning, and sometimes it was like it was trying to warn him or something, that kind of a look.
Under the Juniper Tree there was a seat made out of stone. They used to pile logs under it for the fireplace sometimes. His Dad did anyway, Rayn didn’t like it and told him not to, which was funny, because she was always lighting candles and setting fires.
Next to the seat there was a stone that stuck up from the ground a little. On the stone they had carved three words Falco knew by heart:
Ariela
Flew Away
He sat down on the grass and stroked the stone. His dad said his Mother was curled up in the ground underneath that stone like a chick inside its shell.
He could hear Rayn laughing. He got up and went to the landing.
The waves crashed into the rocks on the shore. Rayn was down there playing with Tang-Tang.
She waved a stick in front of Tang-Tang’s face. He tried to bite it but she pulled it away at the last minute so he couldn’t get any. She laughed and talked to him. She used the pretty words she had that Falco never understood. His dad said those were words Rayn learned far away in another country someplace. When she used those words Falco used to feel funny inside. He used to call them Rayn’s magic words.
She threw the stick when Tang-Tang was worked up so much Falco was afraid he was going to bite her, even her. The white dog growled and tore after it. He pulled it out of the water and ran back to her, so proud. Big deal, anybody could’ve done that. But then seagulls came and Rayn said more magic words to Tang-Tang, and he went chasing after the birds.
‘Watch it birds!’ Falco said. They didn’t listen though. They thought they were safe with their wings. But they didn’t know Tang-Tang the way Falco did.
Most of the birds scattered in the air and it looked like they were all going to get away. Then Tang-Tang caught one. His jaw worked on it and Rayn laughed. Tang-Tang dropped the gull on the rocks in front of her bare toes. The gull was bent and its head flopped the wrong way and after that it didn’t move. Rayn clapped her hands and sent the white dog off again. Tang-Tang must have killed six or seven gulls that way. They made a little heap in front of Rayn. Even from the cliff Falco could see the broken feathers and the blood. There was blood on Tang-Tang’s jaws too when Rayn bent down and kissed him and let him lick her face.
He felt kind of sick. He couldn’t stop staring at the dead birds. He wondered if that was what his Mother looked like in the ground beneath the stone.
Rayn and Tang-Tang started back. Tang-Tang romped up the steps with his tail straight up like he was saying, ‘Come on, hurry up!’ Then he raced back down to her and swung around her skirts.
When she reached the Red Step Rayn stopped and looked up and Falco ducked back down so she wouldn’t catch him spying. In a bit he peeked over the grass again. She was on her hands and knees and reaching under the Red Step. He couldn’t make out what she was doing. Tang-Tang poked his big nose in and she pushed him away and said something to him. He bounded up the steps, shaking the whole pile of them. He was almost at the landing when Falco turned and raced back to the house. He crawled under the porch again, barely in time. The white dog stood growling at him through the laths.
Rayn popped up and walked toward the house. She petted the dog, as pretty as ever. How could she do things like kiss Tang-Tang over the dead seagulls and still look so pretty? But she only looked prettier when she did mean things.
She came back to the porch. She was looking right at Falco through the cage. Maybe she wasn’t, because she didn’t say anything. But it sure felt like she did, so he crawled back deeper.
She turned about and sighed out loud. ‘What a wind! I hope none of my things blows away. I would hate to lose anything. They are all so precious to me,’ she said. Then she went in.
Tang-Tang growled at Falco again. He was still wild from playing down on the rocks and Falco could see his teeth all bloody. On his throat two metal disks hung and made a little metal sound when they hit. Tang, tang. Tang, tang. Probably that was why she called him that. Tang, tang was probably the last thing the seagulls ever heard.
‘Tang-Tang? Tang-Tang! Come in here, silly puppy!’
Tang-Tang gave Falco another growl, like, ‘I’ll see you later,’ and went inside.
For a while Falco hung onto the laths and looked out on the sunshine. Rayn’s sheets and things blew on the line. Then one of her things, it hugged her breasts and she called it a camisole, it took off from the line and went flying.
It landed on the grass. It moved a little in the wind, like it was alive.
He couldn’t hear anything in the house. By then Rayn and Greta and Tang-Tang had gone into the kitchen or someplace. Probably she was giving Greta more food. She was always giving her food.
Falco crept across the lawn where the camisole lay fluttering. It was red like it was on fire. He almost picked it up but he wasn’t sure that was okay, to touch it. The wind blew at it again. He followed, and the camisole hopped to the edge of the cliff. Then it blew over.
He lay down on his belly and looked over the cliff.
The camisole was caught on a rock where there was a little dirt and a weed or something was trying to grow out of nothing. It was down a little past the Red Step.
Something pushed Falco from behind. It was Giorgio.
‘Hey, who let you loose?’ Giorgio wasn’t supposed to be off his tether, not ever. Rayn got sore when he got free. But maybe he chewed himself free. He did that sometimes. He butted Falco and Falco petted him. Giorgio smelled like the green things at the wood’s edge that he liked to eat. Falco liked the feel of his wool-coat, it tickled. Giorgio was his friend. He was probably his only friend.
Falco sat on the landing and looked down. The camisole was still hanging onto the rock and the weed.
Giorgio started to go out onto the landing but Falco pulled him back.
‘No, Giorgio, go back, it’s not safe, how many times do I have to tell you, are you dumb or something? The steps are rotten. Dad says. If you go on the steps you’ll fall on the rocks and break your neck. I’m not allowed there either and I’m ten times smarter than you are. Come on.’
He hauled on the lamb’s collar and dragged him back across the lawn. He tied him up again and moved him to another peg in the shade by the woods where the good green stuff grew.
Through the glass doors he thought he saw Rayn looking out. He turned away and petted Giorgio. He acted like nothing was going on. When he looked back she wasn’t there, so maybe he was wrong.
He went back to the landing and stared at her camisole. It fluttered in the breeze, taunting him.
If he lay on his stomach on that step down there, he might be able to reach it. Rayn had gone down and come back up okay. She even had Tang-Tang with her, and the dog was as big as Falco all by himself.
He took a step onto the landing.
The old boards creaked and rocked in the wind. He wanted to step back but Rayn’s words wouldn’t leave his head. I hope none of my things blows away. I would hate to lose anything. They are all so precious to me, she said. If he could get the camisole for her, maybe she’d give him a kiss. Sometimes she did give him a kiss, after all. It wasn’t like she only hit him all the time.
‘What do you think, Juniper Tree? Should I?’
The Juniper Tree bristled in the wind. It didn’t seem too fond of the idea. But Falco had already made up his mind. He was thinking about Rayn.
He went down the steps, one at a time. He was clinging to the rail and being as light as he could. The stairs swung out from the cliff and rocked back. It gave him a kind of sick feeling in his stomach.
The seagulls soared by, crying.
‘No, I can’t fly like you. I don’t have wings.’
But he heard something else in his head. It was like an old song he heard a long time back and forgot, but then it came back:
Sventola, Falco, sventola.
Then he felt lighter and his throat stopped choking so tight. He looked out over the water when he stepped across the Red Step. It was like if he didn’t look at it, the Red Step wouldn’t know he was there.
He lay down on the step. He slid beneath the outer rail. He had to slide out farther. Straight down below the waves smashed the rocks to foam. Some spray blew up on him. It tickled and tasted salty.
He reached but couldn’t get to it. He had to crawl out more. His shirt was pulled out of his belt and the edge of the step scraped his belly-button. He was hanging so far out his legs came up like he was going to blow away. And the steps creaked and swung way out, but his hand moved closer and the camisole wrapped around his hand.
He twisted back onto the step. He clung to it and held the camisole against his face. It was softer than anything. It smelled like her. It smelled like her towels in her bathroom after she took one of her long baths and then she rubbed the towel all over herself up and down and in between.
He went back up. On the way he saw the nut on the Red Step was gone. The bolt was there but the nut that held the iron onto the bolt was missing. The iron bracket bounced up and down on the bolt. Sometimes it bounced so high it lifted clean off. That must have been what Rayn was doing when she knelt down and felt around there. She must have seen that the nut was gone and she was trying to find it to put it back on. That must’ve been what happened.
All the same Falco had a sick feeling in his gut all the way across the lawn and up onto the terrace and into the house. Just as he had figured, Rayn was in the kitchen. He couldn’t see Greta anywhere or the white dog either.
Falco hung around the kitchen door. He felt bashful. He felt like a fool. What was she supposed to do when he gave it to her? He stared at the camisole in his hands. It shone like fire. Maybe he ought to keep it. Maybe he ought to put it inside his pillowcase. But she’d miss it when she went out to take the wash in. She’d miss it now and later she’d find it in his room and call him a thief and then he’d be in it good.
He let go of the door and walked into the kitchen. She was making soup in a vat on the stove. She turned around and saw him and her eyes lit up like she was surprised.
‘Well now.’ That was all she said.
Falco couldn’t say a word. He looked down and away and he pulled the camisole out from behind his back and held it up to her.
‘Did you find this, little sir?’
He nodded.
‘It blew off the line? You chased it and brought it back to me?’
He was looking at her ankles and her legs. He didn’t dare look up to her face. There was laughter in her voice. Was she laughing at him or was she only happy to get the camisole back? Falco couldn’t tell.
He heard her put the spoon and oven glove on the counter. She bent down so that her face came very close to him.
‘What a good little sir you can be sometimes. You may kiss me now.’ That startled him and he looked up. She had her face turned with her cheek toward him.
He leaned forward into the nest of scent that her body breathed out and he let his lips touch her cheek.
Rayn laughed. ‘Well now little sir, what do you call that? Do you call that kissing? What a weakling little man you’ll be! Here, let me show you how the thing is done.’
Then she held his shoulders and kissed him on the mouth. He felt her tongue licking his lips before she let him go.
He stumbled back. His face was on fire. He could hardly breathe.
She stood and let the camisole hang free in her hands. He leaned against the counter. He didn’t know anything anymore. He just stared at her. Then her face changed.
‘But look here,’ she said. She held out the camisole. There was some dirt on it from the cliff.
‘Just how did you know when this fell from the line, little sir? Were you spying again? Or did you come sneaking around to touch my things, my personal and intimate things? Well now, what a naughty boy you are. A dirty boy, a sneak. You are spying all the time, aren’t you? Look at your hands, how filthy and vile. You stained my beautiful cami. I must throw it away now. I must destroy it. I must burn it in hot flames. All because of you.’
She caught his chin and twisted his face back and up and made him look at her.
‘You know what this means, don’t you, little sir?’
He nodded.
‘What does it mean?’
‘It means you have to punish me.’
‘You bring it on yourself, you know. I don’t enjoy doing it. You only get what you deserve, Falco. You only get what you deserve.’
She slapped him and he fell against the stove and his knees gave out and he slid down on the tile.
She helped him up. She took a rag out of her apron.
‘Oh, little sir, why do you make me punish you all the time? Why must you be so bad? Blow.’
He blew his nose into the rag and she sat him on a stool at the counter. She tied a napkin under his chin.
‘Well now, I’ll get you something to warm you up. Would you like some black bean soup?’
He nodded.
‘Say please. Or there’ll be no more food for you today.’
‘Please, Mommie.’
‘Don’t call me mommie, little sir. I’m not your mommie. What is my name?’
‘Rayn.’
‘That’s right, my name is Rayn, and that is what the little sir shall call me.’
She brought the ladle and poured it into the bowl. The steam-cloud swam in his face.
‘Don’t eat it right away, it’s piping hot!’
She went back to the stove.
He dipped his spoon and fork two-fisted into the black soup. Rayn turned back to the counter and her apron brushed against his arm. Her hand tipped the soup bowl and it spilled into his lap. He pushed back from the counter, shouting, and Rayn’s face leaned in above him.
‘Well now little sir, that was a naughty thing to do!’
And somehow the stool tipped and he fell. He got up, wiping at the heavy greasy black on his pants.
‘You spilled it! My, that must burn! Quick, go to the bathroom and wash up!’
He ran away.
In the bathroom he shut the door behind him. He turned on the light and peeled off his T-shirt and fell rolling on the floor kicking his pants off over his sneakers.
Rayn came up outside the door.
‘Little sir, are you all right?’
He heard her put her key in the door and lock it.
He stood quite still at the sound of that click. Now he was locked in the bathroom with his soiled clothes. Already the dark stains of the bean-soup on his pants began to smell rotten and sour.
He waited but Rayn didn’t come back. Once he scratched at the door but she wouldn’t answer.
He sat on the rug and leaned his head against the toilet and stared at the door leaning high above him.
IT WAS DARK that night when Bjorn came home. It got dark early those days. The sun fell away like a fire going out in the sea, and then the sky turned red with flames, and then the colors drained out of the clouds and the stars peeped out. Around White Quill the woods were black, as black as though they marked the end of the world. Then lights came shining behind the tree trunks and the tires came crunching up the drive.
The black luxury car pulled up behind the house.
Bjorn came in and set his case on the chair by the door. He was taking off his coat when Rayn slunk up behind him with a fresh drink.
‘Welcome home, Mr Hansen.’
She coiled her arms around and kissed him on the neck, biting his flesh a little with her teeth.
AFTER DRINKS, the family sat at table as usual. Bjorn sat at the head, Rayn beside him, and Greta across from them in her high chair. Falco’s chair was empty. Bjorn looked at it and shook his head. Rayn let her fingers tickle the back of his neck.
‘You can’t make him eat, you know.’
‘I don’t know what’s gotten into the boy lately.’
‘He’ll be better come Thanksgiving.’
‘No, he’s always jealous when we don’t make him Thanksgiving King.’
Rayn tied a napkin round Greta’s chin, a black one with green and golden dinosaurs on it. ‘And do you know what these are, my darling?’
‘Di-no-sawers.’
‘Yes! Oh you clever clever girl!’ And she kissed Greta.
Rayn left and came back carrying the soup-vat. She dipped the ladle into the vat and stirred.
‘Oh, is it your black bean soup?’
‘Mind the ham-bones, it’s not strained yet.’
Bjorn frowned at the stairs. ‘Falco! Falco, come down and eat!’
But Falco was locked in the bathroom, sitting in his sneakers and soup-soiled underpants.
Bjorn plucked a bone out of his spoon.
‘Tang-Tang! Tang-Tang!’
Bjorn tossed the ham-bone under the table and the white dog nosed his way in between the chairs.
Greta put her head below the table and watched Tang-Tang gnaw on the bone. Rayn laughed. Her voice was pure as bells.
‘You see, all our babies want their treats.’
She got up and walked to the bathroom door.
INSIDE, Falco saw the glass knob rattle against the lock.
His dad’s voice sounded from far away. ‘What is it?’
Rayn’s voice answered, ‘The bathroom door is stuck.’
‘Hang on.’
Falco heard him join Rayn at the bathroom door.
The glass knob turned again. Through the door he heard their voices.
‘It isn’t stuck,’ his dad said. ‘It’s locked.’
‘Well, who would do such a thing?’
‘Falco, are you in there? I’ve just about had enough of your pranks, young man. Now unlock the door and come to supper.’
He looked down at himself. What could he say? He was dirty, naked, shameful. All he wanted to do was get away. High over the tub he looked at the small frosted window. He climbed on the edge of the tub. Too high. He couldn’t reach it.
He heard his dad’s voice again. He sounded mad now. ‘Falco, open this door!’
‘It’s no use, he won’t answer. Another of his tricks. Didn’t I tell you about him?’
Falco knelt inside the tub. He took hold of the shower curtain and started to pull it round.
The rings of the curtain dragged on the shower rod, screeching.
His dad’s voice boomed, ‘We’ll have to get your keys and unlock it if he’s going to pull stunts like this.’
‘Well now, never mind. I can bear to use the washroom upstairs if I have to. It isn’t worth the fuss, I put up with his antics all day long.’
Falco huddled in the tub. He jammed his fingers in his ears and hummed inside and drowned out their voices.
Overhead the high window hung half-open, and through it he could hear birds singing outside. If only he could go out there beyond the glass where the night air stirred and lifted away from the house, out beyond the dark leaves where stars were shining, and the air grew thick with birds’ songs, and higher still where the last leaves fell away the heavens lay wide open, glittering in another place…
DEEP IN THE NIGHT Falco woke up. He had fallen asleep in the bathtub and the back of his head hurt. He sat up and rubbed his head. Something was changed but he didn’t know what it was right away. Then he saw.
The bathroom door was open.
A little light spilled from the hall onto the door. There didn’t seem to be anybody out there.
Now he knew what woke him up. He remembered sounds like clink and clunk when the door unlocked and opened. That was what woke him.
He stepped into the hallway. The night was cold on his bare legs. He went to the kitchen. He wasn’t hungry but his mouth was dry. He didn’t dare open the refrigerator door though. The light might bring Tang-Tang. He got a glass and some water from the tap. He drank and drank.
He crept upstairs as softly as he could. The door to Rayn’s bedroom was open. Greta’s nightlight shone across the hall beneath her door.
The narrow steps to the attic creaked when he was halfway up but nobody came out to give him a beating.
He crawled under his blankets and poked his head out the foot. He clung to the iron footbar and looked out the window. Out on the Beak the Juniper Tree stood watch like always.
That was Saturday for Falco. It wasn’t the nicest but it wasn’t the worst either. There was really only one thing about that Saturday that made it stand out. It wasn’t going onto the cliff steps, though that was the first time he ever did it. No, what made that Saturday different was a thought that came into Falco’s head up in his room deep in the night, just before he fell back asleep.
The thought came out of nowhere. He must have dreamed it in the bathtub earlier, and he didn’t know what to make of it. But when he thought it, he shivered.
I’m only eight, he thought. Soon it’ll be my birthday and I’ll be nine. It will happen before then.
