Old Green World Read Free Page A

seasoned by everything in between. Arto said to his son, “I need you to help pack the cart before we go to market tomorrow morning, all right? It shouldn’t take too long. But you should sleep early for it.” Albert nodded listlessly.
    Lini paused her chopping. She went to Albert and cradled his head in her hands. She felt his forehead. “You look sad. Are you sick?”
    “I’m fine, Mama,” Albert said. “I was just practicing a little extra.”
    “He does us all proud. He’s ready for whatever Baixans they throw at him,” Mura said. She put new wood on the fire and poked at it.
    Lini winced. “Let’s not talk about the Baixans. The Newtons are well? You behaved yourself today?” Albert nodded and worked his way toward Mura and the fire. He stared quietly at the pot. “Really, what’s wrong?” Lini said. “Did you eat enough for lunch?”
    “Leave him be,” Mura said, looking intently at Lini. “He’s fine.”
    “Oh! Oh .” Lini’s eyes snapped wide.
    “What? What’s going on?” Arto asked.
    “Shush, it’s fine.” Then, in a comical stage whisper: “A crush . ” She then turned to Mura to confirm. “A crush?”
    “I don’t want to talk about this,” Albert said. “Please stop.”
    “Is it a nice girl at school?” Lini asked. “Not the horse-keeper’s daughter, she’s hideous. Is it your teacher? What is the new Adept’s name? Julia?”
    “Clare,” Mura said. “She’s been his teacher for a year and you never remember. It’s Clare.”
    “Right, Clare. So it’s her?”
    “Please, please stop,” Albert said. He had already turned to face the wall.
    “He’s right,” Mura said. “Let it rest.”
    Arto said to Lini: “There’s no girl at school. You never pay attention.” And then, to Albert: “Thomas is a good boy. You’ll make a good home together.” And then, to Mura: “The family is ruling class, though, is that going to be a problem?”
    “Everyone should stop talking,” Mura said with considerably more intensity. Albert was already out the door.
    He looked out across the field toward the forest. It was still twilight. The glow of dusk illumined everything and made the familiar seem unfamiliar. He could see details at the point where the woods met their farmland: leaves, needles, and underbrush, and the spaces in between. Vague layers of forest lay beyond that, dark branches that webbed across all his field of vision. Beyond that was the greenish black shadow of the forest dissolving into the enormity of itself, on and on and on forever.
    He spent some time staring at it, listening to his own breath and listening to the wind caress the trees, feeling it cool his ears. At one point, when everything was still, he thought he saw something, or a shadow of something, several layers in: an indistinct figure moving in the depth of the forest.
    He stood and focused on the woods. He felt the wind grow colder as the sun set, a chill on his neck and in his bones. He had lost the shadow, though, and couldn’t get it back.
    There were things out in the forest. Maybe it was Mister Ewan’s father, or the ghost of Mayor Newton, or the Baixans. Maybe it was a crowd of spirits, all those millions of people that died when the world ended, all of them piling on one another in layers and layers of brush. Maybe when he died, he would go and live there, too. He would become just one of those things.
    After some time, he turned toward the house and went in to supper.
    + + +
    He dreamed he was in the forest, the deepest of all, with every tree spidering out of the ground and into the other trees. He could see the pattern of every tree inside the leaves, and he knew that the pattern of the forest was the same as the pattern of the tree.
    He didn’t know the edges of the forest, or how to get out. He was inside a thicket, and it felt like shelter. The shadow came over him. He couldn’t see the shadow, but he could feel that the shadow was warm, and wanted Albert, and Albert wanted him