Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

“We’re still the good guys, right?”

“Always, Tommy.”

I step over to Zeb, soft and quiet as I can, and sneak the front door key out of his pocket. Zeb groans, but he doesn’t get up. I know we have to hurry. I set about looking for things we can use.

Here’s what I find: a rucksack with a strap on it. It’s sturdy, made of leather. I needed a good pack. Inside I put three candles, Zeb’s carving knife, a canteen that I’ll fill with water from outside. In a trunk there’s a bunch of old-lady clothes, and I take a gray hooded cloak for myself, like my old one, the one I left at camp. It’s patchy and smells like feet, but it’ll have to do.

Under Zeb’s cot there’s a tiny bag of coins, probably Zeb’s whole life savings. I can fit it in my hand. It makes me sorry for him, a little, living alone out here, missing his momma. But then I remember him over me in the night and I shiver and I can’t think about it anymore. I scratch the candle wax off my forehead.

“Could Zeb have done that?” Tommy says. “Made you obey him?”

“That was some bad magic Zeb was working,” I say. “You should have felt it. It was like my brain was a flock of birds that up and flew off. It was like I couldn’t think a thing if I wanted.”

“I never seen real magic before,” says Tommy. “I never even really believed in it.”

“Well you best be believing,” I say, ripping Zeb’s paper spells to shreds. “Seeing as we just found ourselves in a warlock’s den.”

I put Zeb’s momma’s cloak on and turn to Tommy. “What do you think?”

“It stinks,” he says.

“So does everything else in here. You ready to go?”

Tommy nods at me.

At the door I take one look back at Zeb slumped over on the floor. I wish he hadn’t tried to magic me like that. Maybe we could have helped him, me and Tommy. Maybe we could have been his friends. But the way he talked about being treated by the Townies, by the law . . . well, why would he have expected us to treat him any different? I sing him a quick prayer and then shut the door behind me.

Outside the sun is just coming up, a gray dawn in the wet dripping world. We set out quick and quiet into the morning woods, like squirrels, like wood spirits, like the motherless bandit ghosts who will never get caught, who will never be killed, who will find their way to the big white inn in my dreams.

TEN

We walk without talking, watching the morning wake itself up and stretch out like a cat. Hummingbirds float around like asked questions and bash into each other over a purple flower. The woods are misty and hot with last night’s rain, and the dew steams up from the ground like the forest’s own breath. I should be scared, but I’m not. I’m walking through the new morning with my friend.

I don’t quite know which way to go, lost as we are, but I know there’s a road somewhere close maybe, a road worth looking for. We walk through thick woods and low tangled branches, around snake-dangling vines and spiderwebs taller and wider than me, down deer paths and lost ways. We pass foxes and raccoons and the slime trails of snails, the best kind who carry their houses on their backs, who are never lost, who can stop and always be home. But these woods aren’t my woods. They’re different, stranger, like there’s a weird silver sparkle at the edge of everything, like any moment they could vanish and disappear and I’d be left in the gray fog of the world, nothing but God’s big eye staring down at me. This whole forest gives me that feeling. I never felt anything like it before.

“You want to know where we’re going?” I say.

“I didn’t know we were going anywhere,” says Tommy. “I thought we were just walking and hiding and being scared all the time.”

“You think I’d lead you out here just to get lost?” I say. “Naw, Tommy, we’re going someplace special. We’re going to the best place in the whole Hinterlands.”

“Where is that?” he says.

“We’re going to Moon Haven!” I clap my hands together like it’s the greatest thing anybody ever said, like he’ll be so excited to know. But instead Tommy scowls at me.

“You mean the bandit town? I heard about that place. I heard it was rotten. They told us in church it was a den of sin and ini . . . iniquit . . .”

“Iniquity?”

“Yeah, that word. They said it was the most evil place in the world.”

“So?”

“I don’t want to go there,” he says.

“Aw, come on. What they said about Moon Haven isn’t true at all. You’ve seen the Preacher, what kind of liar he is. What makes you think the church folk are right about Moon Haven?”

“Well, my preacher is nothing like that guy. I never met any other preacher half as mean as the one who is after us. My preacher is nice and his name is Reverend Blackburn. Sometimes he lets me light the seven candles all by myself, and once he even showed me what all they make the incense out of. Reverend Blackburn said Moon Haven is a town of gambling and iniquity. He said it’s just like the Two Tall Cities in the Book and that God’s going to burn it flat down. I don’t want to be there when that happens.”

I want to tell him that the Two Tall Cities weren’t burned up for being all wicked, but for not being generous to the poor, to folks like me and Momma. That’s what gets a town burned up, not because there’s some fun to be had there. Still, I don’t think that would help much.

“Preachers just say that kind of junk because they’re scared, Tommy. They’re scared of all the good stuff in