Read Online After the Snow by S. D. Crockett - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: S. D. Crockett
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just sleep and no more running. Just sink into the quiet dark. Floating in the blackness of the night with the stars all around. I try to open my eyes and get up, but the tiredness pulling me down. Pictures floating in my head. I start thinking about the never-ending stars and the sky going on forever with nothing outside it. That thought go round and round in a circle in my head cos it got no outside, no beginning and no end.
Once last summer when we been hunting up on the Farngod,
Dad and Magda lie close under the blankets in the heather and all of us just staring up at the sky. Big black sky and all those pricks of light up there just like now and I remember I tell them about that thought of the stars in the never-ending sky and they laugh and Magda say the force is strong in this one, obi-wan in a funny voice, and we all laugh together, even though I don’t know why it’s funny. But it been good when they been laughing together and not arguing about the trees growing under the door or Alice or God. Magda say maybe the world just been a speck of dust in a giant man’s pocket and outside been a whole other world of giants we know nothing about. Think on that, Willo, she say. And I do.
You can’t sleep.
But I don’t want to open my eyes. Just lie here dreaming in the dark with my heart pounding in my chest and the sweat drying and my shoulders aching from carrying the girl up the hill. I don’t know if it been the good dog or the mad dog, but something in my head been tugging on my sleeve, saying I got to wake up. Got to get the firebox going cos the girl dying of cold right next to me.
And it feel like Magda’s there shaking me to get up. “Think on that, Willo.”
She’s trying to say something but I can’t hear her.
“Wake up, Willo. No time for sleeping yet.”
I sit up. Just like that. But it aint been Magda talking, just the girl moaning. I look down at her bony shape, shivering and breathing shallow. I got to warm the girl up before she forget I aint carried her
from that house just so she can die. No way. Her clothes are all wet with the snow so I got to get them off slow and easy and get her dry.
Without those rags she look like a worm do when it fall in a puddle. Scrawny and white. And when I pull her body under the rug she feel like a lump of ice sucking my warm blood up and that feel good cos I don’t want her to die like the leveret.
“Mary. It aint good to sleep and dream of the stars—you got to wake up a bit and have a brew. You just cold, Mary.”
I feel a bit of a movement in her legs, just a twitch, and her eyes flickering a bit. Got to warm her blood good and slow and get some brew inside her.
“Mary. You all right now. Aint no dogs here. Don’t go to sleep again cos it aint good.”
“Da,” she mumble all quiet.
“I aint your dad. I been the one who got you out the house, remember?”
“Tommy?”
“No, I aint Tommy.”
I aint got much to say to a girl really. I just aint, and I been sick with tiredness. But I got to keep her from going back to sleep.
So I tell her the rhyme my dad always tell me when I been small. He got it written in his book. I know all the words.
“‘I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head, and cut and peeled a hazel wand, and hooked a berry to a thread. And when white moths were on the wing, and moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout.’
“You like that Mary? You gonna like it when you wake up proper. Cos I’ll tell it again if you like. Mary, you hear me? I say you gonna like it when you wake up.”
“Are the moths on the wing, Da?”
She still got her eyes closed, but I know she gonna be all right when she start talking.
“I aint your da but you gonna be all right, Mary. Ask me some more questions if you like.”
“I’m cold.”
“You gonna be all right though.”
“What’s your name if you aren’t Tommy?”
“My name’s
Once last summer when we been hunting up on the Farngod,
Dad and Magda lie close under the blankets in the heather and all of us just staring up at the sky. Big black sky and all those pricks of light up there just like now and I remember I tell them about that thought of the stars in the never-ending sky and they laugh and Magda say the force is strong in this one, obi-wan in a funny voice, and we all laugh together, even though I don’t know why it’s funny. But it been good when they been laughing together and not arguing about the trees growing under the door or Alice or God. Magda say maybe the world just been a speck of dust in a giant man’s pocket and outside been a whole other world of giants we know nothing about. Think on that, Willo, she say. And I do.
You can’t sleep.
But I don’t want to open my eyes. Just lie here dreaming in the dark with my heart pounding in my chest and the sweat drying and my shoulders aching from carrying the girl up the hill. I don’t know if it been the good dog or the mad dog, but something in my head been tugging on my sleeve, saying I got to wake up. Got to get the firebox going cos the girl dying of cold right next to me.
And it feel like Magda’s there shaking me to get up. “Think on that, Willo.”
She’s trying to say something but I can’t hear her.
“Wake up, Willo. No time for sleeping yet.”
I sit up. Just like that. But it aint been Magda talking, just the girl moaning. I look down at her bony shape, shivering and breathing shallow. I got to warm the girl up before she forget I aint carried her
from that house just so she can die. No way. Her clothes are all wet with the snow so I got to get them off slow and easy and get her dry.
Without those rags she look like a worm do when it fall in a puddle. Scrawny and white. And when I pull her body under the rug she feel like a lump of ice sucking my warm blood up and that feel good cos I don’t want her to die like the leveret.
“Mary. It aint good to sleep and dream of the stars—you got to wake up a bit and have a brew. You just cold, Mary.”
I feel a bit of a movement in her legs, just a twitch, and her eyes flickering a bit. Got to warm her blood good and slow and get some brew inside her.
“Mary. You all right now. Aint no dogs here. Don’t go to sleep again cos it aint good.”
“Da,” she mumble all quiet.
“I aint your dad. I been the one who got you out the house, remember?”
“Tommy?”
“No, I aint Tommy.”
I aint got much to say to a girl really. I just aint, and I been sick with tiredness. But I got to keep her from going back to sleep.
So I tell her the rhyme my dad always tell me when I been small. He got it written in his book. I know all the words.
“‘I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head, and cut and peeled a hazel wand, and hooked a berry to a thread. And when white moths were on the wing, and moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout.’
“You like that Mary? You gonna like it when you wake up proper. Cos I’ll tell it again if you like. Mary, you hear me? I say you gonna like it when you wake up.”
“Are the moths on the wing, Da?”
She still got her eyes closed, but I know she gonna be all right when she start talking.
“I aint your da but you gonna be all right, Mary. Ask me some more questions if you like.”
“I’m cold.”
“You gonna be all right though.”
“What’s your name if you aren’t Tommy?”
“My name’s
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