The Fall of Light Read Free

mouth. He saw the eyes flash past and lose their focus and sicken with fear and
     powerlessness. Then the vomit flew pink and curdled onto his shoulder, and he let the boy go and watched Teige fall like a
     rag version of himself at his feet. This was not how Francis Foley had wanted to treat his son, it was not what the old man
     meant or wanted to do. He told himself it was how a father had to behave, and he ignored the idea that his treatment of Teige
     was coloured by how much the boy resembled his mother.
    “How are you going to live in the world?” he asked his son. “Tell me that. How are you going to be a man and live in the world?
     If your father asks you to jump with him into the fires of hell, you jump. If he asks you to swim in the sea when he knows
     you cannot swim and he cannot and the waters are filled with devils, you swim. Do you understand me?”
    Teige did not answer. He stood up slowly, and his father pushed him ahead of him back to the pony. The telescope was wrapped
     in a blanket and tied on the top of all their things. There were pots and tools and wooden furniture and cloths and rugs already
     tattered and various sticks and irons of uncertain purpose.
    “Now!” said Francis Foley, and swiped the air above the animal with the reins. They rode into the water and the whole cart
     swayed downriver at once. It was as though the world had suddenly been turned on its side and everything fell. The father
     stood and shouted atthe mule and slashed at him with the reins and a leather belt and cursed the universe and cried out to Teige to keep them
     between the ropes. The ties he had secured snapped like the river’s toys. The whole of their belongings and the stolen telescope
     swung away. The animals tried to keep their direction but were pulled backward and sideways. They jumped and thrashed at the
     water. Then the lines that held them gave, too.
    In a moment it happened. The harness to the mule broke, the cart sailed free and swung about and pressed against the rope
     of the bridge and snapped it. Francis cried out. In the river Teige looked over his shoulder and saw the old man falling back
     and clutching his precious cargo, the great telescope. Water spilled through the cart grey and fast, and the old man was kicking
     away at it, making a small white splashing. Teige was ahead of him then in the river. He tried to ride the pony back and over
     to his father but could not for the cart was floating away and was on the back of the current. And then the mule broke free
     of it and was swept forty yards then more and then was gone like a ghost dissolving from this world. Teige saw his father
     look with fury at the animal a last time, and then the telescope seemed to roll from its moorings and the old man pushed aside
     some of their things to keep room for it. Pots, shovels, bowls, sailed away downriver. He clung to the telescope. He saw that
     he was drifting from Teige and that he could not be reached and he did not jump from the raft of the cart. He defied the world
     to drown him. He cursed it and shook his head and shouted out something that Teige could not understand. Then Teige called
     to him, and his words too were lost in the rush of the river water and the deadness of that air enwrapped with scarves of
     mist. The father did not hear him ask where was his mother, or if he did, he did not answer. He looked back at the boy, and
     then the whole cart sailed down the river and into the mist and vanished out of sight.
    When Teige reached the far side, none of his brothers could speak. They seemed paralyzed. They did not greet his safe arrival
     or move from that spot on the bank. They looked into the foggy river at nothing. It was as if their father had been erased
     and, momentarily, they were unsure if this was good or bad.
    Teige looked back. “I knew someone would die,” he said.
    There was a pause, and the brothers watched the river. It seemed to run without sound now. The twins turned