Ghost River by Jon Coon (best non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

He waited for her to complete that sentence, but she swallowed and blinked rapidly, as if trying not to cry. There was something in her voice that capitalized that “He,” making it the verbal equivalent of personified evil. What was that hurt that the child spoke of; that unspoken terror that kept her deliberately dumb?

“But He can’t find us here, can he?”

There was a tremulous bravado in that small voice that reverberated deep within. How often had he himself come to this place, staying in this hidden sanctuary as long as he dared, sheltering from his father’s rages or his mother’s unhappiness?

“This place is magic, Cur, magic,” she said, with a vehemence that was based in fear.

Magic. Duncan recalled dozens of boyish spells, calling upon earth and air, wind and fire, but he had been rather a poor sorcerer. When he had emerged from his solitary spellcasting, nothing had changed. His father was still the wicked Beelzebub MacLean. His mother had still wept in her misery. He only hoped that Anne’s childish enchantments were of far better quality than his.

Duncan was about to creep away, ceding the place that had once been his haven to the child, when his foot hit a loose pile of rock, sending a shower of dirt and pebbles down the hillside. Cur began to bark furiously and Anne cowered behind the hound, her only exit blocked by an unknown intruder.

“Tis just myself, Anne,” Duncan said as he rose from hiding, trying to calm the terror that he had inadvertently caused. “I did not mean to startle you, nor spy upon you. Long ago this used to be my special place too, but I ought not to have intruded. Please tell me that you forgive me.” He climbed down the cliff wall and stood in the mist by the small waterfall, waiting for her answer.

The child regarded him, her eyes wide and eloquent as her mother’s. Duncan could almost read her thoughts. How long were you there? She was likely wondering. Did you hear me? Duncan decided upon the truth.

“I know that you can talk, Anne,” he said softly, ending her uncertainty. “You sound just as your Mamma must have when she was a girl. I hear her in your voice. She will be so happy, Anne, that you can speak again.”

Anne shook her head in denial, patent terror in her expression.

Duncan knelt down, looking at level into those horrified eyes. “Is it Him that you are afraid of?” he guessed. “Is that why you are silent, Anne?”

The child’s breath came in shallow gasps and Cur whined, nuzzling her hand in silent comfort. She looked about wildly, like a trapped animal, unwilling to affirm or deny anything.

“You do not have to tell me,” Duncan soothed. “I just want to help you, help your mother. But how can I protect you, if I do not know the nature of the enemy from whom I must shield you?”

“I can’t tell. I can’t.” She backed toward the edge of the pool.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you, Anne, I swear.”

“Not me,” Anne said her little body shaking. “Mamma, he will hurt Mamma again, if I tell. He said so.”

Duncan felt the rage rising in him, but knew that he had to control it. If he frightened her now, all was lost. Although he felt as if an inferno was building inside him, he forced himself to speak calmly as he walked to stand beside her

“Do I really look so silly, Anne?” He puffed out his chest and exaggerated, deepened his voice as she had. “Do you really think that I am under a spell?”

The abrupt change of subject took the child by surprise and she looked at Duncan with puzzled eyes.

“Perhaps I really was under some wicked enchantment, Anne,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Something very terrible happened to me, something so awful that I thought that I would never smile ever again.”

“The Frenchies?” she asked, her hands twisting nervously in Cur’s fur. “Colin?”

“Aye,” he said, laying his demons bare before her. “Though I don’t know how much you heard of my nightmares. Some of those bad dreams were true, unfortunately, the Frenchies, Colin and the ruin of my face.”

“You can hardly see it now,” Anne observed artlessly. “It’s all bushy where the cut was.”

His disbelief was obvious enough to irritate the child and make her forget some of her skittishness. “Silly man,” she said. “If you don’t believe me, come an’ look in the pool.”

Slowly he rose and walked to the still part of the water. A bronzed face stared back at him. The image’s fingers lifted with incredulous hesitancy to touch the beard and sideburns that hugged chin and cheek. Beneath, barely visible, was the lighter skin of his scars. But there were worse scars to deal with, Duncan reminded himself as he saw Anne’s wavering figure appear beside his reflection. “A rather scruffy looking prince, I make,” Duncan said, “all rags and tatters with a castle as moldering as myself.”

“But you are in disguise, you see,” Anne told him earnestly. “In Mamma’s stories all the bestest princes are running about in disguise.”

“As do princesses, if I recall,” Duncan said gently, addressing that childish image in the water. Speaking to his reflection seemed to put her at ease, her posture was less guarded, her expression less fearful. “In my mother’s tales, they were always under terrible enchantments or captured by loathsome dragons until those wandering princes came to their rescue.”

Anne nodded. “Yes,” she agreed. “They sometimes do. But in Mamma’s stories, they sometimes have to rescue themselves.”

“I want to help rescue you, Anne,” Duncan said earnestly to the face in the pool. “And your mother, but I have to know which dragon threatens you.”

“No!” The word was ripped from her and she began to quiver like a leaf in the wind, as he turned to face her directly once again. “He’ll hurt her. He said so. He said He might even kill Mamma