Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

“What’s so good about a bandit town?” he says.

“First off, sure there are bandits in Moon Haven, but you and me are practically bandits now, too, so we should fit right in. Second, there’s a place there, an inn, the Half-Moon Inn. It’s the most wonderful place in all the world.”

“What’s so great about it?” he says, but I can tell he’s interested. Now I just got to sell it to him good.

“Well, the food, for one. They got all kinds of food there. Funnel cakes and turkey legs and blueberry pie.”

“They got cobbler?” says Tommy. “Blackberry cobbler’s my favorite.”

“Of course they have cobbler!” I say. “As much cobbler as you want. There’s a grand ballroom in the Half-Moon Inn, and every night there’s a different show. It’s like a circus all the time. There’s artists and musicians and magic. Good magic, Tommy, nothing like what Zeb tried to do. A theater too, with romance stories, and then the next night there’s action plays, with sword fights and piano playing and dancing. It’s a safe place in the world for weirdos, for the strange folk the world doesn’t know what to do with.”

“It sounds made-up to me,” says Tommy.

“It ain’t made-up. I swear.”

“You seen it yourself?”

“Nope. But I heard stories. All kinds of stories. Not from any liar either. I promise on my heart.” I lean in real close to him and whisper it in his ear, my eyes wide with the promise of it all. “Guess who isn’t allowed in Moon Haven?”

“Who?”

“The Preacher,” I say. “He can’t even set foot in it. We’ll be safe there, Tommy.”

“The Half-Moon Inn have a post office?” says Tommy. “So I can write to Aunt Barbara?”

My heart snaps a little bit with that. Tommy still has a person out there, still has some of his own blood. A family. That’s okay, though. He’ll need a place to go when I find Gruff. No way I’ll be dragging Tommy along on me and Gruff’s adventures. That’ll be just us. It’ll be good for Tommy to have a place to go after all this.

Tommy points over to a mess of trees and brush.

“You see that?” says Tommy.

He walks into the brush. The trees and vines are thick but Tommy pushes them back and away, following a little stone trail. And there it is, under a great big oak tree. A lone burned-black brick column, a chimney, stuck up like a bent finger from the grass. And right next to it is an upright piano. It’s got vines wrapped around it, what looks like a bird’s nest on top. Wildflowers bloom in purples and reds and golds surrounding it. The keys are brown and cracked, the wood all crawled on by bugs and spiders. It looks haunted.

Tommy walks right up to it, not scared a bit. “You think it works?”

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” I say.

“Why? What could happen?”

A lot could happen, I think. I’ve read stories, I’ve heard Gruff and his boys talk around the campfire. These woods are full of bad magic. A bird could fly out. A spell could be broken. Trolls could come ambling from the forest. The piano might burst into flames. You might start playing and never be able to stop and have to play for forever until you’re dead.

He reaches to press a key. I shut my eyes tight.

The note bounds eerily through the forest. It’s quivery, not quite right, but rich and full as an old bird’s call.

“It’s a little out of tune,” he says. “But it works.”

Tommy begins to play. I never seen anything like it. His fingers dance across the keys, and the music that comes out is strong and fast and joyful, bellowing out like old Leebo used to do around the campfire. It’s the bright sad music, my favorite kind, the whirling sort that picks your whole heart up like in a tornado and swirls it across the countryside.

Tommy strikes a key and half of it breaks right off into the grass.

“This one’s busted,” he says, and bites his lip. Then he does something wonderful. Slowly, humming to himself, Tommy plucks out a few notes that I know. It takes him a couple of tries, but then he gets it just right. The nothingsong, the one Momma taught me.

“How did you learn to play that?” I say.

“I dunno,” says Tommy. “It’s just that song you’re always singing. You know, it’s simple. Nice. I kind of like it.”

“Play it again for me, please,” I say.

He does. It’s the loveliest way I’ve heard it since Momma died.

“Thanks, Tommy. I didn’t know you could play.”

He smiles at me.

“My daddy taught me,” he says. “He was a good guy.”

“I never knew my daddy,” I say. “I don’t even know what he looks like, or if he’s alive or dead or anything at all.”

“My daddy got sick and died. He was always getting sick, but he was a good guy. Me and Momma loved him.”

“I thought you said he was a wrestler who fought riverboat captains.”

“That’s what I told all the kids in town. Really though he was a musician. He played piano. That’s what he taught me, before he died.”

I feel a little shiver of wind, a strange and cold breeze. It’ll be getting dark soon. I’m already tired from all the walking.

“I don’t think we should camp here,” I say. “I think it’s where a house burned down.”

“How did the piano survive?” he says.

“I don’t know, Tommy. But I don’t think it’s ours to find out.”

He just nods at me, like he knows. We get to walking again, quiet this time, like we’re trespassing, wandering through some dark stranger’s woods and we don’t want to get caught. The shadows from the trees feel cool, like this part of the woods is grayer, with less light, the spot of some sad mystery. The Preacher is out there somewhere, hunting us. We walk faster.

Soon me