Read Online The Hunter From the Woods by Robert McCammon - Free Book Online Page A

also been lowered. She had her arms around herself. She was wearing the ugly mouse-colored overcoat and a gray head-scarf, which allowed just a glimpse of her blonde hair. Tonight, of course, there was no need for sunglasses. Her eyes were a cool shade of aquamarine under unplucked blonde brows. Her nose was small and sharp-tipped and her chin was adorned with a small dimple. She looked at him with something like horror in her face, and then she put her head down again and tried to get past as quickly as her weight of a left shoe would allow.
    “May I walk with you?” Michael asked, before she could escape him.
    “No,” she said, more of a whispered breath than a voice. “Please. Leave me alone.” She was trying to move faster, but she suddenly stumbled and had to catch her balance against one of the funnels.
    “Don’t you want to see Vulcan at his forge?” Michael asked. She was still trying to get away, not daring to meet his gaze. He gently spoke her false name: “Kristen?”
    The teenaged girl took two more staggering steps before she looked back over her shoulder.
    “Come watch Vulcan at work,” he told her, standing against the gunwale. “Just for a moment.”
    “I have to go,” Marielle said, but she wasn’t moving. Her eyes darted here and there; anywhere but to his own eyes. And then: “How do you know my name?”
    “I suppose I heard someone mention it. From the passenger list.” He smiled again. “I think it’s a very pretty name.”
    “I have to go,” she said again.
    The right foot moved, but the heavy left foot remained where it was.
    Lightning flared amid the clouds.
    “There!” Michael said. “Vulcan at his forge. Did you see it?”
    “No.”
    “Keep watch, then. It’ll just be… there ! Did you see it then?”
    “It’s lightning,” she said, with a trace of irritation.
    “It’s Vulcan,” he corrected. “Working at his forge. He’s the god of blacksmiths, you know. Ah, listen…hear the sound of his hammer on the anvil?”
    “ Thunder ,” she muttered.
    “Vulcan has an interesting history.” Michael made a half-turn so he could watch the display in the clouds but she could also still hear him. “He was the son of Jupiter and Juno. But Juno thought he was ugly. She cast the baby off the top of Mount Olympus into the sea. When he fell all that way, he was injured.”
    There was no response for a little while. Then her quiet voice asked, “Injured? How?”
    “He broke one of his legs,” said Michael. “It never developed properly. After that, he was always crippled. There he is again! Listen to that hammer!”
    Marielle Wesshauser, the daughter of Paul and Annaleisa and sister to Emil, was silent.
    At last she said, “I shouldn’t be talking to you. Father said not to talk to anyone.”
    “He’s right. There are some men on this ship who are not very nice.”
    She frowned at the deck. Michael saw her glance quickly up at him and then away again. “Are you nice?” she asked cautiously.
    “If I said I was, would you believe I was telling you the truth?”
    She had to think about that one for a moment.
    Michael watched the lightning. The sound of thunder was nearer now; a storm was on the move. North Sea weather, particularly at the change of seasons, was never predictable. “You don’t have to talk, Kristen. I’ll talk. Can I tell you some more about Vulcan?” He turned to face her.
    She kept her eyes averted. She shrugged beneath her overcoat.
    “Vulcan,” said Michael, “sank down to the bottom of the sea. The sea-nymph Thetis found him and took him to her grotto, and she raised him as her son.” He paused, firming up the memory of this story from his mythology studies. “Vulcan had dolphins for playmates. He had all the sea as his world. Then one day he found what was left of a fisherman’s fire on the beach. Do you know what it was?”
    She shook her head. Again, her eyes slid to his, lingered for just a few seconds, and then darted away.
    “A