The Serpent's Skin by Erina Reddan (top 5 books to read .txt) 📕

Tim looked at the empty cage, his hands at his waist. He was all still. Then he itched the back of his neck. He scratched the side of his face. He got down onto his knees and examined the bottom of the ferret’s cage.

‘Hurry up.’

‘Fleas,’ he said.

‘They’ll run out of air if we don’t let them out.’

I hated ferrets and their sharp, sharp teeth, but I didn’t want them to suffocate while Tim was looking for imaginary fleas. He didn’t seem to care that more things were dying now.

‘Why did you ask Dad about Mum’s missal?’ he asked, eyes still stuck on the bottom of the cage, his back to me.

‘Didn’t,’ I said.

Tim pulled at his collar. ‘I heard you, JJ, at the rosary.’

‘It was nothing. I got mixed up.’

‘Why was the old man so upset if it was nothing?’

‘Don’t know why it has to be such a big secret,’ I blurted out despite my good intentions to keep my mouth shut.

‘He burned it, didn’t he, JJ? He burned Mum’s Mass book?’

I sucked my finger. ‘Dad’s allowed to burn what he likes.’

‘It wasn’t the book he was burning, but,’ Tim said.

‘It was so,’ I said, the red starting to get its claws in me again. ‘I saw it.’

‘It’s what was inside the prayer book,’ he said.

I frowned, trying to get ahead of him. ‘Yeah, like Dad wanted to burn all the prayers,’ I said scornfully.

He didn’t react, his face all muscle still and serious. ‘Remember the police gave the old man an envelope?’ I nodded. ‘I went in to see him about the tractor pump that night. He wasn’t there so I waited. The envelope was on the bed with all the police stuff inside, but her missal was more out than in. She must have taken it with her when she died. She never let us touch it, right? Just between her and God, right?’

I was still too.

‘This time I touched it, just to feel something of hers. I found out why she never let us near it, but. She wrote something in it. On the inside cover. I saw it.’

I fell back on my bum with the surprise of Mum dirtying up her Mass book like that. It made not one lick of sense. I kicked out, sending him sprawling for lying to me, then jumped quick to my feet, my fists ready for him, but he just took it, getting himself up as if nothing happened.

‘She wrote an address,’ he went on, as calm as calm, ignoring me.

I let go of my breath. ‘That’s why she didn’t take her Mass scarf with her.’

‘What?’

I told Tim about Dad having her scarf in the ute and how it had ended up down at Jean’s Corner. ‘She didn’t need her scarf because she wasn’t going to Mass. But she did need the book because she wanted that address.’

The ferrets were banging away in the bucket.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Didn’t know it was anything special until he burned it.’

‘What are you two buggers up to?’

We jumped. Dad blocked the light through the door.

‘Ferrets,’ Tim said, quick as a flash. ‘Longtail looked a bit crook.’

Dad grunted. He had his back to us, sorting through his tools on the bench. ‘Seen the shifter?’

Tim scratched his neck again. I was full sorry for him, with this thing that was too big and him not used to things like that—not like me. But I was beginning to feel itchy, too.

‘What was the address in Mum’s missal for?’ I asked Dad before I could stop myself.

‘What’re you talking about?’ Dad’s voice was all dirty.

‘You know, her Mass book.’

He threw down the hammer with a great bang. Turned. ‘Not again, JJ. You’re always making trouble where there’s none to begin with. How’d ya know about the address?’

I shrugged. ‘Just do.’

He gave me a long stare then turned back, throwing tools about, making a hell of a racket, like he was all about the shifter.

‘Maybe she was bored, looking after Aunty Peg,’ I said, trying to find a way out for him. ‘Got doodling.’ Even though I knew Mum would never go writing over her Mass book for nothing.

He turned back to us, using the bench to hold him up like he had no stuffing in him. ‘Just stop it, or you’ll end up like your mother.’

I blinked with the knife of it. I buttoned my lips up good and tight, not letting one more word escape. But out of nowhere, for the first time I ever knew, Tim didn’t back off.

‘JJ being like Mum wouldn’t be so bad seeing as how Mum was so good,’ said Tim.

I blinked with the surprise of it.

Dad stared too. ‘You’re not wrong there, son.’ He paused. ‘But sometimes she had a mind of her own and it didn’t do her any good. She should have been here where she belonged instead of gallivanting about.’

‘Or looking after Aunty Peg, like you said she was,’ Tim corrected.

Dad blinked twice, redded over. Turned his back like he had business he’d better get back to.

But Tim still hadn’t finished. ‘Reckon that address must have been important,’ he said. ‘To write it in her book and never let any of us know about it.’

I wanted to give him one of those kicks Tessa was always giving me.

‘Could be, son. We’ll never know now I’ve burned it.’

‘Why’d ya do that, Dad?’ Tim asked. He was crouching still, like he was all casual, but his neck was ridged up.

Dad scrubbed his face with his knuckles. ‘Had to say my goodbye before the rosary, my own way.’

Something started prickling at me on the inside of my skin.

‘And you’ve been ringing around after we’ve gone to bed, haven’t you?’ asked Tim. ‘All those phone numbers in her address book. She wasn’t at Peg’s, was she?’

We were on the far side of ordinary now and I was as scared as scared. Dad definitely wouldn’t keep me if Tim kept this up.

Dad said nothing.

‘Did you