Night Songs Read Free

ought to head on home. Your mother'll have a cat fit if you miss supper tonight."
        Matt kicked at the sand. "Oh, she won't care." He looked up defiantly. "I'll be ten at Christmas, y'know. I can take care of myself."
        Colin coughed and looked to the sky. "I'm sure you can, pal, but you know mothers."
        "I said she wouldn't care."
        "Really? Are we talking about the same woman here?"
        "Sure we are."
        "You mean the woman who runs that tacky little drug store on Neptune Avenue? The woman who says I draw like John Nagy? The-"
        "Who's John Nagy?"
        "Never mind. You're too young." He turned the boy back toward the hamper with a slap to his buttocks. "And the very same woman who single-handedly, as it were, arm wrestled Ed Raines at the Inn and beat him three falls out of four? That woman?" His voice rose as he walked. "Are we talking about the lady who condescends to feed starving teachers now and then? The woman who-"
        "What does condescend mean?"
        Colin put his hands on his hips. "Matthew, will you please stop changing the subject?"
        "Well, jeez, I just wanted to know. Mom's always telling me to ask if I want to know something. So I'm asking." He scowled and shoved his fingers under his waistband. "Gee. Nuts. Goddamn."
        "Matthew," he cautioned, "watch your mouth. I've seen your mother turn into a raving, bananas monster when she hears you talk like that."
        Matt looked up at him, wide-eyed and innocent. "Mr. Ross, are we talking about the same woman here?"
        
***
        
        At irregular intervals through the woods, narrow, gray-planked boardwalks had been laid to guide swimmers to the beach. After snatching up the hamper, Matt jumped to the nearest pathway and began walking briskly, almost marching, whistling at the birds hidden high in the thick autumn foliage. Colin trailed more slowly, taking an extra-deep breath every few paces to see if he could capture a scent of the pastel air-the lazy slants of sunlight touched through with bronze and gold, the shadows more crimson than black, the underbrush still clinging to blotches of stubborn green. For the few minutes the walk would last he could easily still be back in New England, yet the muted grumbling of the surf behind him never let him forget he was riding the ocean on the back of a rock.
        A flash of red on the ground.
        He swerved toward it, stepping off the boardwalk to the base of a stunted pine. He took a deep breath, then expelled it with a soft grunt as he kicked loose dirt and leaves over what he had seen. When he returned to the boardwalk, Matt was staring with a frown. "A beer can," he said, waving the boy on.
        Matt was clearly doubtful, but he made no move to argue. Colin shoved his hands into his pockets to ward off a chill.
        He had found a gull, wings and legs torn from their sockets, feathers matted with grime and dried blood, its head eyeless and crawling with busy ants and silent flies. He had found two others like it over the past week, all in the woodland facing the ocean. Still more, a dozen in all, had been discovered on other parts of the island. Street-corner conversation lay the blame on dogs; night whispers said it had to be Gran D'Grou.
        Colin had no answers of his own. If it had been dogs, the mutilations were all the more vicious because none of the birds had been even partially eaten. And he didn't believe a dead man would return to stalk the island just to wring the necks of a few raucous birds.
        "You going to the funeral?" Matt asked without looking back.
        He shuddered once to banish the gull's image. "Yup."
        "We're not," Matt said as if he regretted it and at the same time wasn't sure it was safe to be relieved. "I know."
        Matt shrugged, and tilted his head. "Mrs. Wooster is with her sister in Philadelphia. She's sick or something. She won't be back until Tuesday.