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starting trouble just to make trouble is unacceptable behavior from every one
of you. And that goes for you too, Teaser."
"I didn't do anything," Teaser muttered, slouching in his chair. "Just said
the girl had a nice pair of tits."
"Where I come from, if a man says something like that to a girl's brother, the
next thing he'd better be saying is the date of the wedding," Michael said
darkly.
"Well, we're not in your part of the world, are we!" Teaser replied in a
prissy tone of voice. "If you're going to get all scrappy about the way we
live, go back where you came from."
I don't know how.
Powerful men ... who had a powerful influence on the world.
Remembering the sandbox  and how the world had changed to reflect his
feelings  he leaned back in his chair and looked out the kitchen window.
Nothing appeared different, but how could he know how much influence he had on
the world? Was a nearby village filling up with heavy fog at this very moment?
Was some farmer's field suddenly full of stones that might lame a horse or
break a plow? How was he to know?
"Did I break the world?" He almost expected to hear Aunt Brighid's voice
saying, You're puffing up your consequence, boy. But no one in that kitchen
dismissed his question  and a true, pure fear began to shiver through him as
he looked up at Nadia. "You said we were powerful men. I'm a Magician. A
luck-bringer. An ill-wisher. The world listens to me. I can make things
happen." Memories stirred, and he added in a horrified whisper, "Even when I
don't mean to."
Nadia tossed the wooden spoon onto the table, then hurried to the back door,
pausing long enough to yell "Glorianna!" before she was out the door and
running toward her walled garden. A moment later, when Glorianna
rushed into the kitchen, Lee pointed to the door and said "Go."
She hesitated a moment, and Michael saw the flash of understanding as their
eyes met. Then she was gone, following her mother into the gardens. Michael's
stomach started rolling. It was getting hard to breathe. "Rory Calhoun." The
memory sank its teeth into his heart.
He'd been sixteen years old and already planning to leave Raven's Hill the day
young Rory Calhoun and two friends met their fate in the old quarry.
He'd gone for a walk, wearing the new coat Aunt Brighid had bought him as a
fare-thee-well gift. Inside, he was a swirl of fear and excitement at the
prospect of leaving home for the first time since his father had settled him,
his mother, and baby Caitlin into the cottage that, along with the land that
came with it, had been the sole inheritance the man could offer his wife and
children. Then his father had resumed the wandering life and, two years later,
his mother had walked into the sea.
But that day, Michael wasn't thinking beyond the dimly remembered romance of
the wandering life, had seen it as a way to escape the looks people gave him
and Caitlin Marie. He had seen a way to earn some coins with the music he'd
taught himself to play on the tin whistle he'd found in a trunk of his
father's belongings.
That day, his mind and heart had been filled with the sense of adventure and
the pleasure of wearing a new coat instead of a patched, secondhand one. Then
Rory and two friends began following him, taunting him, throwing clods of dirt
that just missed hitting him and dirtying his new coat.
Until Rory had thrown a clod that hit him square in the back. Stung that the
people in this village wouldn't let him have one nice thing, he turned and
looked at Rory. "May you get everything you deserve."
"Ooooo," Rory said, waving his hands. "He's ill-wishing me. Ooooo."
They continued to follow him until they reached the old quarry. Then they
abandoned him to play "dare you"  a game all the boys in the village had
played at one time or another to prove manliness or bravery or some other
foolish thing. Usually the game was played on the other side of the quarry,
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where there were slabs and ledges of stone that weren't too far below the top.
A fall on that side of the quarry might end with a broken leg or arm. On this
side was a steep slope that changed to a sheer drop to the quarry floor. Any
boy who fell on this side of the quarry would end up at the bottom, broken and
dying.
He'd sometimes wondered what would have happened if he'd kept going, kept
walking. But the air around him had trembled with a discordant song, and
something about those young voices pulled at him. So he'd turned and saw them
standing much too close to the edge. But that was the whole point of playing
"dare you." The quarry's edge wasn't stable. Walk too close and a section of
stone might break away. The winner of the game was whichever boy stood closest
to the edge and stamped a foot, daring the stone to break.
"They're not bad boys," he'd whispered as he'd watched the three shuffle up to
the quarry's edge. "Well, two of them aren't. Without Rory, the other two
would settle down and grow up."
In that moment before things changed forever, he heard notes so harshly
abrasive they made him wince. One harsh note, actually, and two others that
weren't quite in tune. Two that might fit back into the song that was Raven's
Hill if given a chance.
In that moment before things changed forever, he saw all three boys jump up
and land on the edge with a two-footed stomp.
Before he could move, the boys disappeared, replaced by the roar of stone and
air filled with dust.
Michael ran to the quarry, stopping a man-length from the new edge, then [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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