Read Online Newford Stories by Charles De Lint - Free Book Online

do you think the world depresses me the
way it does?”
    “Except it’s not all bad. You can’t tell me
that the only stories people have are bad ones.”
    “They certainly outweigh the good.”
    “Maybe you’re not looking in the right
place.”
    “I understand thinking the best of people,”
he said. “Looking for the good in them, rather than the wrongs
they’ve done. But ignoring the wrongs is almost like condoning
them, don’t you think?”
    “I don’t ignore them,” Jilly told him. “But
I don’t dwell on them either.”
    “Even when you’ve been hurt as much as you
have?”
    “Maybe especially because of that,” she
said. “What I try to do is make people feel better. It’s hard to be
mean when you’re smiling, or when a laugh’s building up inside of
you.”
    “That’s a child’s view of the world.”
    Jilly shook her head. “A child lives in the
now, and they’re usually pretty self-absorbed. Which is what can
make them unaware of other people’s feelings at times.”
    “I meant simplistic.”
    Jilly wouldn’t accept that, either. “I’m
aware of what’s wrong. I just try to balance it with something
good. I know I can’t solve every problem in the world, but if I try
to help the ones I come upon as I go along, I think it makes a
difference. And you know, most people aren’t really bad. They’re
just kind of thoughtless at times.”
    “How can you believe that? Listen to them
and then tell me again how they’re really kind at heart.”
    Jilly’s head suddenly filled with
conversation.
    … why do I have to buy anything for that
old bag, anyway…
    … hello, can’t we leave the kids at home
for one afternoon…the miserable, squalling monsters…
    … hear that damn song one more time, I’ll
kill…
    No, they were thoughts, she realized, stolen
from the shoppers in the mall that lay on the other side of the
alley’s wall. It was impossible to tell their age or gender except
by inference.
    … damn bells…oh, it’s the Sally Ann, doing
their annual beg-a-thon…hey, nice rack on her…wonder why a looker
like her’s collecting money for losers…
    … doesn’t get me what I want this year,
I’ll show him what being miserable is all about…
    Jilly blinked when the voices were suddenly
gone again.
    “Now do you see?” her companion said.
    “Those thoughts are taken out of context
with the rest of their lives,” Jilly told him. “Just because
someone has an ugly thought, it doesn’t make them a bad
person.”
    “Oh no?”
    “And being kind oneself does make a
difference.”
    “Against the great swell of indifferent
unkindnesses that threaten to wash us completely away with the
force of a tsunami?”
    “Is this what they meant with the ill will
that laid you low?”
    “What who meant?”
    “The crow girls. They’re the ones who found
you and brought you to the Kelledys’ house because they couldn’t
heal you themselves.”
    A small smile touched his features. “I
remember some crow girls I saw once. Their good humour could make
yours seem like grumbling, but they carried the capacity for large
angers, as well.”
    “Was that when you were a buffalo?”
    “What do you know about buffalo?”
    “You’re supposed to have buffalo blood,”
Jilly explained.
    He gave her a slow nod.
    “Those-who-came,” he said. “They slaughtered
the buffalo. Then, when the People danced and called the buffalo
spirit back, they slaughtered the People, as well. That’s the
history I read on the skin of the world—not only here, but
everywhere. Blood and pain and hunger and hatred. It’s an old story
that has no end. How can a smile, a laugh, a good deed, stand up
against the weight of such a history?”
    “I…I guess it can’t,” Jilly said. “But you
still have to try.”
    “Why?”
    “Because that’s all you can do. If you don’t
try to stand up against the darkness, it swallows you up.”
    “And if in the end, there is only darkness?
If the world is meant to