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:: You're on the way to your evening errands when you spot :: :: it. A journal, left open on a bench, its owner nowhere :: :: in sight. You pick it up thinking to find a name, maybe :: :: return it to its owner, when your eyes are drawn to the :: :: page it's open to. You tell yourself that maybe reading :: :: it will help you find the owner, but if that was really :: :: true you'd flip to the front to look for the name. :: :: You don't. Instead, you begin to read... Page 26 I Saw this three days ago. Not this exactly, but close enough. The gap between the grain cart and the fence, out of sight of the square, out of sight of anyone. A night like this one, dancing and too much wine going around, everyone's attention spent on the music and the person in front of them. The kind of night where something bad finds an unsuspecting girl standing alone in the dark. I've learned not to ignore that kind of certainty, so I came. "You're missing the dancing," I say. "I can see it fine from here." She can't, not really. The cart blocks half the square. But she's not looking at the square anyway, she's looking at all the bodies in it, the way she'd look at a thunderhead deciding whether it's time to head back toward town. "You could get closer." "I could." She doesn't move. "I'm fine here." A cluster of children run past, shrieking, and Kiri goes still in a different way than before. Not startled, just retreating somewhere behind her own eyes until they pass. "That's a lot of people," I say. "It's a festival." Like that settles it. Like she's already made peace with the idea of it and doesn't need me pointing out the facts. "You don't have to like it." "I don't dislike it." She considers the square again, the noise, the press of it. "There's just a lot of it at once." I let that sit. I don't think she means it as a complaint. Kiri doesn't really complain. I'm careful with what I say next. I want her off this spot, away from this fence, without her ever knowing there was a reason beyond cider. It's hard enough for Kiri to be comfortable around other people, I don't need to make it harder. "There's mulled cider by the west stalls. Fewer people over there." She looks at me sideways. Weighing whether that's an offer or a test. I guess with me, sometimes it's hard to tell which. "Is it safe to drink?" "Safer than your tea jar, last I checked." I said it before I thought about whether it was funny. It wasn't, not really. Last week I'd told her not to touch the leaves, and she'd asked why, and I'd said 'because I said so' like an idiot, and three days later she found out the reason herself. Something eight legged, patient and venomous, curled up among the leaves. She doesn't laugh. Kiri doesn't, much. But something in her face tells me she's remembering it too. "I checked the honey jar after that," she says. "Just in case." "Nothing in the honey jar." "I know. I checked." "Fewer people," I say again, steering her back. "That's the offer." She pushes off the fence. Not eager. Just decided. "All right." I don't let myself relax until we've cleared the shadow of the cart. It isn't much, her walking toward the festival instead of away from it. But it's away from here, and that's the only part of tonight I actually needed to change. :: Embarassed, you quickly look around to see if anyone has :: :: noticed you reading someone else's journal, but as usual :: :: everyone is focused on the most important person in his :: :: or her life - themselves. Flipping quickly to the front, :: :: you see the owner's name in careful red print, and re- :: :: solve to drop it at the messenger on your way home. :: | |