Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

friend will die. But if you come with me, he might can live. Hustle and we maybe could even save the leg. Besides,” he says, cutting a glance around the woods, “some folks have been knocking on doors, looking for a couple of kids out here in the wild. Saying they’re bandits, demon-possessed. Now y’all wouldn’t want to be out here with any demon-bandit children running around, would you?”

He winks at me, and maybe he knows. The morning is black, clouds scowling at the earth. A cardinal looks down from the trees and tilts his head at me, like he wants to know what I’m going to do.

“Who’s Chester?” I say.

“Oh, you’ll like him. You’ll like him fine. I think you and Chester will wind up mighty tight friends, if you ask me.” He looks up at the darkening sky and sighs. “Look, we ain’t got time to talk. You coming or not?”

Tommy’s hands move in jerks. He’s chomping his teeth, fighting out against some fever demon. His eyelids flutter open and shut, his pupils rolled back so all I can see is white. He looks bad, real bad. I’m scared.

“Okay,” I say, “we’ll go.”

“First you got to help me rig up a splint for him. And we got to keep him from hollering out too much, if you don’t mind.” Lance spits in the dirt and toes it with his boot. “What I mean is, this sucker’s going to hurt. Do what you can for me.”

Tommy’s a little bit awake now, coming in and out, yelping when we jostle him too much. Lance braces his leg with two sticks and begins wrapping it tight with cloth. Tommy screams and his face gets redder and redder. I kiss his cheeks and sing to him one of Momma’s songs, the one my momma used to sing me whenever I got sick. There’s no healing without music, she used to say. Music gets way down past your blood, past your bones even. It gets into the dark of you, where you’re sickest of all. You got to sing all the sick away. You got to fill your darkest places full of light.

“That’s a pretty song,” says Lance.

“My momma taught it to me,” I say.

“Then that’s just the right song to sing.”

It takes us a minute to get Tommy to where we’re holding him up. Lance isn’t all that much taller than me, so it works out okay.

“Let’s move quick,” says Lance, “but smooth if we can manage it. Only about a mile to my place if we keep off the roads. Just watch your step and let’s try not to hurt the boy too much.”

It takes us a good half hour. Twice we almost fall, and twice Tommy howls like we stuck him with a fire poker. But we never do go all the way down, and pretty soon, grunting and sweating and huffing, we get to a cabin in a small bit of clearing off the road.

“Home sweet hovel,” says Lance. “And thank the Lord, because I’m wore out. I ain’t worked this hard since I was a farm boy, and I flat hated that junk. Now let’s get the boy some help, shall we?”

The cabin is bigger than mine and Momma’s was, with a good roof and a chimney puffing smoke. There’s a garden out front, full of purples and blues, with an apple tree dangling bright reds. It’s a happy house, I think. It looks like happy people live here. A white kitty with a black tail rubs itself against the door like it wants to come in. Maybe it wants us all to come in too.

What do you say, kitty?

The door opens before we even have time to knock. A straggly-haired man who is maybe sixty bends down and strokes the kitty’s back. “Hi there, Princess,” he says. “Princess Mona.” Then he sees us. “My little Mona, what have you brought us today?”

“Chester, it ain’t the cat that drug this boy out from the ditch,” says Lance. “Just me and this one here. What’d you say your name was?”

“Goldeline,” I say. It feels good to say my name out loud. It feels like I lit a little candle inside myself again.

“Goldeline,” says Chester. “Such a pretty name.”

“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. It’s been so long since someone said something really truly nice to me.

“And who is this little bird you’ve brought me?”

“His name’s Tommy,” I say. “And his ankle’s broke up real bad.”

“I see,” says Chester, bending down to look at Tommy’s splint.

“Think you can help him?”

“Darling, I shall do my part. That I promise you,” he says, with a little bow. Princess Mona rubs herself against my leg, purring. I like Chester, I think. Him and Lance both.

“Great. Now let’s get the little guy inside,” says Lance. “I’m about sick to death of carrying him and my shoulder’s liable to give out.”

“Old man,” laughs Chester.

“Shoot,” says Lance. “Ain’t any older than you are.”

We follow Chester into the house. It’s lovely, clean, and bright with life. Flowers cut and arranged in vases, a warm fire, and a big grand table. A painting of an old man on the wall, with a little girl holding some flowers. And best of all, books and books, shelves full, on the floor, piled up everywhere, a whole fortune of books. We lay Tommy on the table.

“Where are we?” says Tommy.

“You’re at our home,” says Chester. “I’m going to try and fix up your leg a little bit. How does that sound?”

“Sounds like it’s gonna hurt,” says Tommy.

“Unfortunately, you’re right about that,” says Chester. “But we’ll do what we can. Goldeline? Can you get me that bottle over there?”

He points to a big green glass with a cork stuck in it. I get it from the table, but when I bring it near Tommy he gets scared.

“Don’t make me drink anything,” he says.

I won’t give Chester the bottle until he tells me what it is.

“We got poisoned by an old