Read Online Out of This World by Charles De Lint - Free Book Online Page B

it were planned, somebody would have approached you by now.”
    â€œCory did, pretty soon after I changed,” I say. “He was there when I woke up as a human again. And Auntie Min keeps trying to convince me that I’m some big chosen one.”
    â€œSo you think they’re responsible for what’s happened to you and the other young people in Santa Feliz?”
    â€œCory? No. I’m not too sure about Auntie Min.”
    Tío Goyo shakes his head. “She is too connected to her land to have grander designs. You know nothing of your heritage, do you? What it means to be a cousin—one of the animal people?”
    I shake my head. “But I don’t buy into this crap of me being some kind of hero saviour. I mean, come on.”
    â€œHow can you be so sure?”
    â€œI grew up my whole life being me . I love my mom, but our family doesn’t have any special heritage, in the way you’re saying.”
    â€œWhat about your father?”
    I shrug. “He’s just a loser that I don’t think about.” That’s a lie. Not the loser part, but I’ve been thinking about him my whole life. I try to figure out why he left Mom. She’s beautiful and smart. She’s a good woman. It never made any sense that he’d just walk away from her. Why he’d walk away from us .
    But that’s nothing I want to share with anyone, and I’m not going to start with Tío Goyo. He’s looking at me—studying me—but I can’t get a read on him.
    â€œWith all you’ve experienced so far,” he finally says, “how can you be so sure that you don’t have a destiny?”
    I have to smile. “Like I’m going to believe that, coming from yet another person who wants something from me?”
    â€œI told you before. There are no strings attached to whatever help I can give you.”
    I nod. “Except you’re just being more subtle than the others. You’ve all got an agenda. You figure if you help me, I’ll feel obliged to help you when all of this is done.”
    He studies me for another long moment, then shrugs.
    â€œWe should get some sleep,” he says.
    He butts out his cigarette on the stone and puts what’s left in his pocket. Then he gets up and goes to his makeshift bed.
    I stay where I am, looking up at that big moon in a bigger sky. My thoughts start to drift. When I realize that I’m not thinking of Elzie, but of Marina and what the hell is she doing with someone like Chaingang, I give my head a shake and go to my own bed.

I crouch behind what’s left of a wall in the ruins of the building where I’ve taken shelter, holding a length of rusted pipe that I guess was once part of the plumbing system. There are no ceilings or a roof. The walls that still exist are a mix of brickwork and cement, and rise up at least two storeys with the hint of a third. There’s rubble all around me. It was like that as far as I could see before the voices I heard sent me scurrying here for shelter—just abandoned and ruined buildings, and broken-up city streets choked with junked vehicles and brush—everything falling down and reclaimed by nature.
    It’s all so different from back home—or even from those other times I first crossed over to the otherworld. There’s not even a single salty hint of the ocean in the air. It’s humid rather than dry. The overcast sky just makes everything seem even more gloomy, especially to someone like me who’s used to her So-Cal sunshine.
    I’d like to explore a little instead of hiding—try to figure out what happened to this place—except now I can hear the approach of whoever owns those voices. Unlike me, they’re nottrying to hide. Their footsteps crunch in the dirt and they’re talking away to each other. I hear three, maybe four different voices. I still can’t make out what they’re saying—I don’t