Read Online NaGeira by Paul Butler - Free Book Online

you,” he says with eyes narrowed. “And it isn’t nonsense. How do I know you didn’t plan this whole thing? How do I know you didn’t want me to murder Sara?”
    I’m suddenly too tired to hear these questions, and tired of watching this young fool pacing and circling. How do they knowI don’t cause drought and mist and cold? How do they know I don’t cause the fish to disappear from the bay and the beasts to run away from the woods? There is no end to such foolishness and no defence against it either. Why don’t these idiots build me a scaffold, hang a noose about my neck and be done with it?
    “What did you do with Sara’s body?” I ask feebly to change the subject.
    “I took it out in Uncle Seth’s boat and threw it into the bay beyond the cove. It might wash up around here. It might be pulled out into the ocean, or wash up somewhere else.”
    He’s pacing more slowly now, calmed by his decision to put the blame on me. I put my hands on the sides of my chair and prepare to rise. “Well, if I’m the murderer,” I say, “you don’t need my help. Let’s go down together and see who they believe.” I begin to stand but he leaps towards me.
    “No!” he says, flapping his hands urgently to sit me down. “No, you must not!”
    “But you said there was no danger they would blame you.”
    “That’s only if I can’t survive on my own.” His fingers tremble over my head. “I don’t want to give you away.”
    “That’s very kind of you,” I tell him, settling down again.
    “I need to know all about the forest. I know you have charms to protect me.”
    ———
    I shouldn’t have helped the boy. Murder is murder. Concealment is not only wicked, but futile. But I did feel responsible. I should have warned him when he first came to me thatlove could not be forced. I knew his passion was unhealthy, but the boy drew me inside his desire. I felt its heat and its compulsion. And now he has committed the worst of all crimes, there is still something about this clumsy, foolish boy I cannot refuse. Once again I am inside his feverish mind, looking out.
    I picture him weaving his way under the pine-scented canopy. I wonder if the amulet I gave him helps him sense the forest’s pulsing heart. Does he hear the man of the forest in the rustling leaves? Will he harvest the mushrooms I told him about? Will he set rabbit snares when he gets far enough into the interior?
    The settlers have been yelling Sara’s name for some while, but no one has come up the hill. It is still early and they are not panicking yet. Perhaps they suppose she has skipped along the shore or rounded the rocks to the next cove. Or maybe that she has hidden herself in someone’s home as a jape. But when the sun climbs higher and the waves roll and sizzle for hours on end with no sign of her, things will change. Beyond the settlement—the cluster of homes, the ribbon of beach, and a few bald rocks—there is only an endless murmuring ocean and a vast and unexplored forest. Few have troubled to learn the ways of the woods and, for most, including the Rose children, being lost is the same for an hour as for a hundred years.
    Already there is tension in one man’s voice, and I can sense him listening hard as his call of “Sa-ra-Sa-ra” echoes around the cove, then dies into silence. This must be Simon Rose. He is trying to decide how angry he should be.
    “Sara!” he calls sharply this time. Judging from the voice, he has climbed a little way up the hill. What would it take, I wonder,for Simon Rose to knock on my door? How desperate would he have to be? And what would that extraordinary meeting be like? Two people who have lived for forty years in the same small settlement exchanging words for the very first time.
    Simon Rose is silent again as he listens for his Sara’s reply. I hear his boots scrape against the dry earth as he turns and goes back down to the settlement.
    He will have to come again; it’s inevitable. And eventually