Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

ground, picking his nose. He’s such easy prey for anything that comes along, bear or bandit. Or Preacher. A cloud blocks the little bit of sunlight that would come through the trees, and the woods around me darken. Something is out there, says the little voice in me. Something is coming for you, Goldeline. For you and Tommy both.

I shake my head and the cloud moves and the sunlight sprinkles back through the branches in little bars of gold. Nothing is out there. No Preacher, with his wild hair and scar down his cheek. He’s not out there, not carrying a torch and a knife, not sneaking up on me from the darkest corner of my dreams. It’s just woods stuff. Nothing is hunting me. I go on my way back to the camp.

FOUR

For dinner Leebo cooks up a stew. It smells bad, but it’ll do. I fill my bowl up a second time for Tommy.

“Hungry there?” says Pugh. He’s standing right behind me and I didn’t even notice him, I’m so worried about this Tommy stuff. I got to be more careful or I’ll ruin everything.

“Starved,” I say.

“You’re gonna get fat, the way you been eating lately,” he says.

“What are you even talking about, Pugh?”

“I seen you take an extra bowl last night too. I seen you taking extra the last few days.” He smiles. “And that’s Mr. Pugh to you.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t have any excuses.

“Come on now, Pugh,” says Leebo. “She’s a growing girl, ain’t she? Grew half a foot just since last year. It makes a body awful hungry to be growing all the time.”

“She’s got a secret,” says Pugh. “Little minx is up to something.”

“You don’t talk about Miss Goldeline that way,” says Leebo. “You got a nasty mind, Pugh. Plain mean.”

“You’ll see,” says Pugh. “Before long I’ll show all of you. Never should have picked the girl up in the first place. She’ll be the ruin of us, mark my words.” He squints his evil eye at me. “I’m watching you, girlie. One mess-up and I’ll be there.” Pugh puts a hand to his knife, a curved fang of a weapon. “I won’t let you mess up twice.”

When he walks away I realize my hands are shaking. If it wasn’t for Leebo that could have gotten much worse.

“Ignore the cranky old sod.” Leebo chuckles. “You’re a smart one, you are. A good girl. I know you wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt Gruff and all us boys out here. Ain’t that right?”

“Sure thing, Leebo,” I say, and give him my best smile.

Stupid. I got to be more careful. I already kept Tommy safe, kept him from forgetting, from being lost and wandering out in the woods. He knows that we’re bandits out here and not ghosts—that it’s real human bandits who can be caught and killed. Sure, the Preacher might suspect it, but regular old folks like Tommy are still scared, and that fear protects us. How do I keep Tommy safe and not be the death of Gruff and all the boys? How do I keep everyone from dying, much less protect myself? Pugh would kill me if he knew about Tommy, and I bet not even Gruff would stop him. I would deserve getting killed. I got everyone’s lives depending on me, and not a one of them knows it. What would they say if they knew? It’s a dangerous game I’m playing, and I don’t even know what in the heck I’m playing it for.

I take a deep breath and walk my way back into the forest, Tommy’s momma’s dress dragging in the dirt behind me.

Come nightfall me and Tommy are lying together, up under the tree. We got rocks for pillows and the ground is cool and soft. Fuzzy finger-long caterpillars tremble over my arms with their clown faces. The moon’s just a wink in the sky and the stars are a warm happy sigh. An owl up in the tree keeps looking over its shoulder. All you mice out there better buck up and hide. Owl’s gone hunting. And he hoots like he hears me the whole time. Maybe he does.

My momma could talk to animals. We had a cat named Marybell and she and Momma would purr back and forth at each other for hours. I’ve seen birds land on her sweet shoulder and the way the fish would swarm around her feet when we bathed in the river. The sun would hit their scales and they’d turn into treasure. I would chase and never catch them, little ghosts of gold that flitted away downstream, that were never mine to have. They were the river’s own money, Momma said, and we should let them be.

“Were you ever a human girl?” Tommy says. “A normal girl and not just an angel?”

I was a normal girl with Momma. I was just any other little kid when Momma was still alive, before the Preacher came for us.

“Yep,” I say. “Once, a long long time ago.”

“How did you die?”

Suddenly there’s eyes looking down at me everywhere. Bats in the trees, owls out in the night, bugs out from under the rocks. Even the stars are staring. There’s a tree that looks like an old lady stirring a pot, and her leaves bend down to listen. I can’t lie, not with all these witnesses, not with the whole of heaven and nature breathing down my neck. So I take a deep breath and I say it.

“When my momma got burned up, they burned me up too. That’s when I died and became an angel.”

“Don’t only witches and heretics get burned?”

“Not when it’s heretics done the burning.”

“Oh,” he says. “My momma died too.”

“I know, Tommy.”

“It’s not fair that mommas have to die. I’d be dead too if I didn’t have you. I wouldn’t even be here anymore. I’d be gone.”

“But you aren’t gone. You’re here and so am I and so is the moon. We’re okay.”

“What is heaven