Read Online The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco - Free Book Online

the crowd, the dead children forced to keep up with every step. He does not bother to look at the man’s corpse, for he does not specialize in this kind of death. His eyes are trained on a young girl who has wandered some distance away from the group. She sits on a small park bench opposite the apartment block, engrossed in her music.
    The Smiling Man sets up shop at the other end of the bench, ostensibly to watch the drama unfolding on the other side of the street. He observes her when she is not looking.
    â€œI don’t think your mother would want you watching all this,” he says after considerable time has passed.
    The girl shoots him a suspicious look. Few adults, in her experience, would condescend to talk to children the way this man does with such impunity. She takes an earbud out of one ear. “Mommy’s a policewoman,” she says. “We were driving home from school when the alert came on her radio. She was the closest to the crime scene, so she had to investigate. Mommy says we don’t have enough cops in this town, so we always have to adapt. She told me to stay inside the car,” she adds, as if this was a trivial detail not worth repeating. “But it was stuffy inside.”
    â€œThat is true,” says the Smiling Man, whose interest wanes slightly once the girl divulges her mother’s occupation. “But I don’t think she’d like to hear you’ve been talking to strangers, either.”
    â€œMommy said talking to strangers is dangerous,” the girl admits. “Are you a stranger?”
    â€œI live in Massachusetts,” says the Smiling Man. “So I suppose you can call me a stranger. Can you say Massachusetts?”
    â€œMassachusetts,” says the girl. “I’m not an idiot. Are you dangerous?”
    The Smiling Man laughs at her courage. “Well, it was dangerous for that man over there, wasn’t it?” he asks, sidestepping her question and pointing toward the crime scene, where the crowd surges closer, straining to see more of the dead man as the medical technicians begin loading the body into the back of an ambulance. A flock of reporters (eight) swarm around the police officers (five), firing volleys of questions into the air at them like bullets. “They say he was a stranger, too.”
    â€œThat’s true,” the girl concedes. “Maybe strangers can also be dangerous to each other.”
    The man laughs again, amused. “My name is Quintilian.”
    â€œSandra,” the girl counters and adds, “That’s a weird name.”
    â€œMy mother named me after a Greek philosopher.”
    â€œMommy named me after her favorite soap-opera actress.”
    â€œSandra is a nice name.”
    â€œI wish she’d named me after someone more famous. Like Marie Curie. I think Marie is a nice name. Or maybe Marie Antoinette.”
    â€œMarie Antoinette had her head chopped off by a group of angry Frenchmen.”
    The girl is unfazed by his choice of words. “But she got to go to parties and wear wigs and eat a lot of cake. What are the names of all your other friends?”
    â€œWhat friends?”
    â€œAll those kids sitting on your back.”
    The man stills suddenly, and his smiling face changes. His gaze is now wary, and his hand slowly dips into his coat pocket and stays there. “There aren’t any kids on my back,” he says, trying to sound like a patient adult dealing with a rather precocious child.
    â€œI can see them. They’re grouped all around you, and they don’t look very healthy. Why are they all afraid of you?”
    â€œWhat an interesting child you are, Sandra,” the Smiling Man says. “What a funny little child.” From his pocket he withdraws a folded handkerchief, sending a faint whiff of chloroform into the air. He should not be doing this so close to the police cars, he knows, but sometimes the thrill of it fuels his