Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

“But a few days ago I read something that reminded me of Ian. I think he would have liked it, too. It has no title.” She opened a small book to a dog-eared page.

Joe, who had been looking at the clouds, lowered his gaze slowly toward Rachel, who stood a bit apart from him, closer to the edge of the grave. From where he was standing he could see part of the page she was reading from and the poet’s name at the top of the page.

H. Caldwell. The name stirred something in his brain. But then Rachel began to read, and once again Joe was overcome with thoughts of Ian, and the fact that this was his funeral.

In the thick of the screaming, impolitic gulls

sat a boy

sand on his feet, hair sticky with wind

arms sleeved in salt

clutching in his hands

a bag of old bread.

He tore off a crust, peered at the birds.

Threw it and the wind swept it back.

The birds converged. The boy hastily drew in his feet.

Drew out another bit. Thought about the wind.

His second throw took the bread well out to the birds,

who fought over it as if the sea held nothing to compare.

They paid no attention to the boy.

Their eyed, like fish eyes, left sticky impressions on the bag.

The boy wanted to feel the tops of their heads,

run his hands along the feathers on the tops of their heads.

He wanted them to come closer, orderly like,

and stand still.

He took another crust from the bag and tossed it on the sand.

Then a girl who had been watching from nearby rocks

walked through the mob of birds and spoke quietly to the boy.

Looked out toward the sea. Gestured at the sky. Glared at the birds.

And walked away.

The boy watched her go.

Looked at the birds for a very long time.

Then he threw the feast high through the sun-sated air

and walked away slowly, the bag balled in his pocket,

his arms straight out at his sides,

his hands sweeping through

the most uncelebrated region of the sky.

Rachel closed the book and slipped it into her coat pocket. A woman near her turned and looked into her husband’s eyes. He gave a small shrug. Rachel, noticing, smiled. She turned, walked away from the edge of the grave, and stood with Joe while the minister invited the mourners to throw flowers or earth down onto Ian’s casket. Without a word, Rachel and Joe declined.

One week later, Joe woke up in the middle of the night and opened his eyes. He lay quietly, waiting for whatever had awakened him to resume. There was thunder in the far distance, but he did not think he had been awakened by thunder. Acorns and twigs sometimes fell loudly onto the Schooner’s roof, but there was no wind. On occasion, an arrogant raccoon would scratch its irritable hide against the Schooner’s bumper and set everything rocking. The first time this had happened Joe had nearly fainted from fright, but he couldn’t remember the last time a raccoon had brought him up out of sleep into this kind of wakefulness.

Gradually, he grew sleepy again. His body grew heavy. His breathing slowed. And then, as his eyelids slid to a close, he remembered.

He climbed out of his bunk and turned on a lamp, pulled an apple crate out of the back of his closet, and removed from it several dusty books and a bouquet of winter gloves. In the bottom of the crate sat the box of gold. Still inside was Holly’s letter.

He carried it back to his bunk, sat down, and read it through, once, twice, once again. Then he put the letter back into the box of gold, replaced the books and gloves, slid the crate into the closet, and began to dress.

Rachel awoke to the sound of someone banging on her door. The air pulsed with the sound of the hammering. When she heard a man calling her name, she was certain that his voice was a stranger’s, it was so hoarse and terrible.

“Who is it?” she called with both of her palms flat against the door.

The banging stopped. “It’s Joe,” he said.

When she opened the door, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up the stairs, past her cooling bed, and into the corner where she kept her books.

“What’s wrong?” she gasped as they stumbled through the darkness. “For God’s sake, Joe,” she cried as he knocked over a lamp and scrabbled for it in the dark. “Tell me.”

“That poem you read at Ian’s funeral,” he said, breathing more slowly, finding the lamp and switching it on. He got up from his knees, put the lamp gently on the table, and turned to the nearest bookcase. “Would you please show me the book it came from?”

He had terrified her. For a book. And it was in Rachel to throw him out, kick him down her front-porch stairs, sweep sand into his eyes. “You had better have a goddamned good reason for this,” she muttered, reaching for a slender book with blue binding.

He seized it from her, turned it over in his hands, opened it. He flipped impatiently past the first page, the second, paused at the third, closed the book, and sat heavily on the floor.

“What did you do with the jacket?” he asked her, using his mouth carefully.

“It was in my way,” she said. “It’s”—she strode across the room to her desk—“right here.” He made no move to regain his feet. She brought the jacket to him, put it in his hands, felt her anger abating as she watched him slowly look at every part of the jacket, read every word on it, and carefully set it aside.

“These poems were written by Harriet Caldwell,” he said. “My sister’s name was Harriet. Her middle name was Caldwell, my mother’s maiden name. My sister was a poet. And I think I was that boy on the beach. The one who didn’t understand about birds.” He held on to the book like it was a lifeline.