Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

“Whatcha thinking about, Goldeline?”

“Not a thing, Tommy. Just water and some food and some somewhere else.”

“Are we lost?”

“Sure are.”

“Oh,” he says. “Well, I’m glad I’m lost with you.”

But then me and Tommy come up on something I don’t expect at all. The forest ends suddenly, and ripped through and clear is a road, bread-colored, six feet wide and dusty. A good one, I can tell from the wheel tracks. One that’s in use a lot.

“This is it, Tommy! This is the road to Moon Haven. It has to be.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I can just feel it. I know this is the way.”

“I don’t know, Goldeline.”

“What’s not to know?”

“Well, it just don’t feel good,” says Tommy. “In my stomach I mean.”

“Probably still sick from Bobba’s food.”

“Not that kind of not feeling good,” he says. “I mean in a big way. Like something bad’s waiting on us.”

“What could be bad at Moon Haven? This is where we’ve been headed. It’s where we’ll be safe.”

“People haven’t been real friendly to us, Goldeline. Everyone we meet wants to kill us or poison us or make us sick. What makes you think this place will be any different?”

Because Gruff will be there, you idiot. But I don’t dare say that.

“I’ll tell you what Moon Haven means,” I say. “Moon Haven means food. All kinds of food, and good stuff, not poison or magic or anything. Real food. It means a bed for the night, a comfy one, with as many blankets and pillows as we want. We got money, right? What we took from Zeb. And there’s no way they’ve heard of us all the way out here. Because we’re a long way from Templeton, a long way from where the Preacher would be headed.”

But right as I say that, something flinches in my belly. Just a whisper of something, like a ghost wind saying maybe we’re not near quit of him. That maybe he’s going to follow us for always.

I can’t tell Tommy that I feel the Preacher’s eyes on me, even now. That I mean something to him, something important. I can’t say what, or why either. But I matter in all of this. It has something to do with my dream, with my memory. I matter so much he won’t stop until I name him or he kills me.

Name him? Those aren’t even my words. Those are somebody else’s. Those snuck into my brain from the wind, from the red-burned sun, from the clouds reflecting in the puddles along the road. Something is pulling him to me, dragging him along, and it won’t be finished till one or the other of us is dead.

“You all right?” says Tommy. “You look like something got you spooked.”

“We’ll follow the road to Moon Haven, like I said. We’ll be safe in Moon Haven. And there will be acrobats at the Half-Moon Inn. It’ll be like a carnival, lanterns strung up, torches, musicians on every corner.” I tell all Gruff’s stories again, say them out loud like they’re some kind of magic spell, like the harder I believe them the more they will protect me. “So much food you can’t even imagine it, a banquet hall with a table so long you got to squint to see the people on the other end of it. Everything we could ever want or need is in Moon Haven, I guarantee you.”

“Acrobats?” he says.

“Yep. Dancers too.”

“Musicians?”

“You bet. Street singers all over the place. I bet we can even find you a good piano to play on.”

“Yeah, I dunno.” But he’s smiling. He’s even got a whistle to him. “It’ll be something, won’t it?” He flicks an acorn off into the leaves.

I’m so happy I could run the whole way there. By nightfall I’ll be with Gruff and we can run away together, be bandits on the run from the preachers and the lawmen and the Townies forever and ever, never belonging anywhere, with no one and nothing to ever drag us down. Safe, me and my Gruff, together finally at Moon Haven.

FOURTEEN

We creep alongside the road, deep into the trees where no one but another bandit could see us. We keep the road just in sight, just visible, so we don’t lose it. Twice carriages pass us, twice me and Tommy duck down in the weeds, and twice they move along. A few men on horseback ride by, their collars up and hats down even in the heat, as if they know bandits are afoot. I wonder if it’s me and Gruff that’s struck the fear in them or something else. My belly’s gnawing itself like it’s got teeth. We still got Zeb’s money. Maybe I’ll buy us something sweet. Maybe I’ll buy us a pie.

We come to a road sign, a chunk of wood with some words carved into it, the only words I ever want to see again for the rest of my life. “Moon Haven ½ Mile.” I can’t believe it. Moon Haven was just past the bad woods, same as Gruff said it would be. I’m so happy my guts hurt, my heart gallops in my chest.

“That’s where we’re headed, right?” says Tommy.

“That’s it,” I say. “We’re almost home free.”

“Good,” he says. “I’m awful tired of walking.”

“Not too much farther at all.”

I start to sing a different song, a happy one, a celebration song of Momma’s. A carriage comes our way, so I duck us back down in the woods, away from the strange cockeyed stare of the driver, his guns drawn. We hide until the horses rumble past. There is an awful lot of worry out on this road, isn’t there? But I guess it’s to be expected, on the way to the bandit town and everything.

We near the edge of the forest. The gates of Moon Haven are just ahead, tall and wooden and scarred, like they’ve kept out more people than they’ve let in. But today they are opened wide, just for me, and