Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

a pitiful bundle of lonely and sad clutching each other in the dark. But it’s okay, because I got a plan. I’ll tell Tommy all about it tomorrow. Well, not all. See, I know where Gruff is. I know where I got to go.

Moon Haven. That’s where he’s heading. That’s where me and Tommy got to go too. The Half-Moon Inn. Gruff’s probably already there, waiting for me, a mug of ale, some roast duck, acrobats and magicians doing tricks all around him. Gruff is famous at the Half-Moon Inn, and when I get there I’ll be famous too. They’ll know all about me from the stories Gruff has been telling them. They’ll know I’m the dreaded Ghost Girl of the Woods, me, Goldeline, that I’m the only little-girl bandit in the whole woods. They’ll give me candy and dresses and dolls, but I won’t take the dolls because I won’t be just a kid anymore. They may think I am but they’ll be wrong. When I get to Moon Haven, I’ll be a bandit through and through. And if there’s one thing Gruff taught me about bandits it’s that a real bandit never gets caught.

First thing in the morning me and Tommy are busting out of here and taking off for Moon Haven.

NINE

“I’m sorry, little thing.”

I blink my eyes open. It’s real dark in the hill. Over me like a troll in a nightmare is Zeb. He’s not in his cart, he’s standing up a little bit, and he’s got a red candle up to his face.

“I ain’t evil,” he says. “Not a bit.”

“Zeb?” I say.

He sets the candle on the ground. In his other hand is a scrap of paper, symbols written on it, scribbled and gashed, no language I know.

“It’s hard, just me out here, no momma to take care of me,” he says. “Yes sir. Hard to tend a garden when you’re all alone. Hard work keeping the rabbits out.”

His face is so close to mine. I can see the dirt and food in his beard, and his breath smells like rotten things. Zeb bites his thumb until it bleeds. He smears a red streak across the paper, hooks it around like some strange letter, a symbol.

“Boy needs his momma around,” he says. “Zeb needs a new momma. Hold still now, this won’t hurt you none.”

I try to jump up but Zeb grabs me. He’s strong, stronger than I ever thought possible. I can’t stand up. I scream loud as I can, I scream with everything I got held up inside me.

“Old magic,” he says. “Word magic. This won’t hurt none, but it will make you obedient.” I gnash my teeth at him, I scream and spit. “Yes sir, you’ll do everything I say. You’ll be a right good helper for old Zeb.”

He presses the paper on my forehead, and with his other hand takes the candle and tilts it down at me. Red wax drips from the candle onto my skin. It sizzles and burns, the paper now sealed to my forehead.

I feel it start, the color zapping out of my eyes, all sound going muffled and dull. I can’t think anymore, my mind is clearing, it’s so nice almost, to have no thoughts, to be free of Momma, of Gruff gone, of all my memories. There’s nothing now, just a soothing blank as my thoughts blow away like smoke.

I’m going now . . . I’m going . . .

I got to fight it. I got to hold tight to Momma. I got to remember her.

Momma and me in our hut, laughing as the rain dribbles down through a leak in the ceiling.

Momma singing paths through the woods, lighting the way with her song.

Momma mending baby bones with a word and a prayer.

Momma up on the scaffold, the Townies crowded round.

Momma jeered at, Momma mocked.

Momma’s pain, the Preacher’s torch glowing her face gold.

It all turns to hurt and I scream my hurt up into Zeb’s grizzly awful face.

Suddenly the paper’s gone, fluttered off somewhere. I don’t know how but Zeb is lying on his side next to me, holding the back of his head. Maybe I did it. Maybe my scream was like magic.

But then I see flickers of Tommy in the candlelight, Zeb’s hoe in his hand.

Zeb rises up to all fours. “You don’t understand, boy,” he says. “You don’t know what it’s like to work hard as old Zeb. You don’t know what it’s like to be out here, can’t go a mile. You don’t know what it’s like to need and need and need and never get a thing. And I ain’t ever gonna let you know. That kind of pain ain’t for you. I’ll fix you up good, ol’ Zeb will.”

Zeb scuttles toward Tommy, dragging himself through the dirt.

Tommy swings the hoe real hard this time. The hoe comes down on the back of Zeb’s head. The candle snuffs out. I get up and pull open the curtain. Moonlight shines through a crack in the front door, lighting Zeb facedown in the dirt.

“Did I kill him?” says Tommy. His voice cracks.

I bend down over Zeb.

“Naw,” I say. “He’s still breathing. You knocked him out cold.”

Tommy drops the hoe and sits on the floor next to Zeb.

“I conked a stranger in his own home,” he says. “I’m on the run from the law. I’m a criminal now, aren’t I?”

“But you’re a good criminal, because you did it for me.”

“Can somebody be a good criminal?”

“I think so. I hope so.”

“I have to run now, don’t I? I have to be on the run with you.”

“No you don’t,” I tell him. “You can blame it all on me. I’ll say I did it. You can leave now if you want.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want to leave. I want to stick with you.”

I smile at him, grateful despite myself.

“Let’s look through this house and see what we can use,” I say.

“You mean like stealing?” says Tommy.

“Of course,” I say. “But good stealing. We’re like bandits on the