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although he hadn't, and he didn't get shoved down the stairs for dawdling on
his way home from school, although he had. Those were the triggers, the
excuses, not the reasons. You couldn't stop it by figuring it all out and
doing it all right, because it wasn't about you, and it didn't matter what you
did.
The trouble was, he couldn't stop trying to figure it all out, and when he
wasn't watching himself, that old superstition welled up, that old myth that
only if he knew everything, if he understood everything, it would all be all
right.
Hosea's hand griped Ian's shoulder. "Do not whip your own spirits," he said
in Bersmal for privacy perhaps, although both the Thorsens spoke Bersmal as
well as Ian did. "I beg your pardon, Doctor," Hosea said, this time in
English. "I told Ian to be easy on himself. There is a reason that they call
it 'abuse,' you know."
"Yeah." Doc shrugged an apology. "It was a stupid question. Kathy Aarsted's
the same way."
"Kathy Bjerke," Ian said, correcting. "And it wasn't Bob Aarsted who abused
her."
Doc grinned. "You can put money on that, kid. If you can find somebody fool
enough to bet with you."
Karin Thorsen still wouldn't meet his eyes.
You know,he wanted to say,maybe it's about time we put all that behind us.
The last time he had taken a Hidden Way to Tir Na Nog, it had been at her
pressuring, and she had rushed him into going through in an attempt to preempt
either her son's or her husband's having to walk the soil of Tir Na Nog once
again.
"It's okay, Karin," he said, quietly, knowing what she was thinking about.
Thorsen's face was as impassive as carved granite.
Hosea smiled, and Sherve nodded his agreement. "It worked out well enough, in
the end."
The fact that a gorgeous woman, even one in her early forties, could wrap a
man just barely into his twenties around her little finger with no more than a
chin quiver was hardly news.
Besides, Ian had a thing for gorgeous older women. One particularly
gorgeous and remarkably older woman, in particular.
How old was Freya? And how could you measure such a thing? What was the
proper yardstick? Given that the Old Gods had retired to Tir Na Nog long ago,
and simple years wouldn't do. Was it eons? Legends? Ages?
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Never mind.
The problem was here and now.
Ian's hand dipped into his pocket, and his fingers closed around the warmth
of the ring once more. He slipped it onto his thumb.
He concentrated, and thought,Really, Karin, it's okay. I'm not mad, not any
more. She had viewed him as more expendable than her husband and son, and she
had quite cleverly manipulated Ian into a dangerous situation that could
easily have gotten him killed. But Ian wasn't angry at her. He was jealous of
Torrie and Thorian, sure nobody had ever been that devoted to Ian
Silverstein but he wasn't angry.
It's okay. All is forgiven,he thought, willing her to believe him. It was
true. You were allowed to persuade your friends that you had forgiven them, if
you had; it wasn't wrong, it wasn't an abuse of the ring.
The ring pulsed, painfully tightening and then releasing on his thumb in time
with his heartbeat.
Hosea nodded in agreement.
Karin Thorsen sighed, and visibly relaxed, and cocked her head to one side.
"You look far away."
Hosea chuckled. "That he's been."
He sat down next to Ian, reached for a roll of lefse from the plate on the
table, and took a tentative nibble. Nice the usual way to eat the soft potato
flatbread was to spread a thin layer of butter over it, sprinkle on a little
sugar, and then roll it up, but Karin had substituted a generous portion of
her summer raspberry preserves and maybe a little lemon zest? on the lefse
before rolling it up and cutting it like sushi.
Hosea was capable of putting away more food than Ian would have thought
possible to fit into that skinny frame, but he didn't follow the local custom
of a heavy breakfast any more than Ian did. '
"That he will be again, I don't doubt," Hosea said. "The winter out on the
plains here is an acquired taste."
Was Ian's restlessness that transparent?
Hosea nodded, answering the unasked question. Yes, it was that transparent.
At least to him. But maybe not everybody else could see it.
"Be that as it may," Thorian Thorsen said, rising to his feet, "for now, Ian
Silverstein and I have a shift to take, and little enough time to get there."
He rose to his feet and took a last bite of toast, washing it down with a last
swig from his coffee cup. "Come, Ian Silverstein."
"You bet."
There was an old tan-and-Bondo Ford LTD station wagon parked down the road
that led to the small stand of trees surrounded on all sides by snowy fields,
which was all that remained of what had been some sort of sacred place a few
hundred or a few thousand years before. Off in the trees, a wisp of smoke
worked its way through the gray branches, only to be caught and shattered in
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the light wind.
Thorian Thorsen eased the Bronco onto the hard-packed ground next to the
Ford, leaving plenty of room for Ian to swing the door all the way open, which
he did. The air in the Bronco had been wonderfully warm; the outside air hit
Ian with a cold slap.
You know it's cold when you take a sniff and your boog-ers freeze, Ian
thought, adjusting the cuffs of his parka to nest over his gloves before he
shouldered his bag and Gi-antkiller's cue case and followed Thorsen down the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]