The Sorrow King Read Free Page A

drifting over a darker sky.
    Cumulus , he thought. And then, Jeremy Liven .
    Who was he ?
    Steven didn’t know. He didn’t have a clue. Over the past year, he had taken to thinking about stories. While he never wrote any of them down, he constantly thought of ideas and characters. Maybe Jeremy Liven was a character’s name, waiting to be used.
    Or maybe . . .
    Maybe Jeremy Liven was the latest suicide.
    He dismissed that thought. That was just his mind trying to creep him out.
    Far enough away from his house, he stopped and lit the cigarette, pulling smoke into his lungs. It seemed acrid after wandering around in the clean night air but it was the nicotine he wanted. It had a way of perking up his blood and clearing out his head and he thought his head would desperately need some clearing out if he had any hopes whatsoever of going back to sleep later tonight.
    First there was the nightmare and then there was the naming of the clouds and then there was the naming of the dead.
    And now there was a person walking on the other side of the narrow street.
    At first glance, he thought he just imagined the person. Now, looking closer but trying not to stare, he saw that it was a girl. Younger than him, he guessed and, from this distance, very cute. He looked at her just long enough to capture a picture in his head—long straight hair he thought of as reddish but knew could be brown in this light, a bulky gray sweatshirt and jeans that hugged her hips nicely—before looking down at the sidewalk and pretending he didn’t see her.
    But not before she had noticed him, not before that brief eye contact that sent his nicotine-infused heart beating even faster.
    He resisted the urge to turn and watch her walk the rest of the way down the street, under the lamps where he could see her a little better. That was just his teenage hormones, he figured. Each day was a struggle against the pesky hormones racing through his body, threatening to lift his sex and turn it rigid at the most inopportune times.
    Walking with his back to the girl, he wondered why they had both looked away so quickly after spying one another. It seemed like they should have waved or exchanged a knowing nod or struck up a brief conversation. After all, it wasn’t every day he found someone else wandering the streets of Green Heights at two o’clock in the morning.
    And who was the girl, anyway? She didn’t look familiar. That must have meant she was either in junior high (which made his restrained ogling seem a little disturbing) or out of school (which made her that much more alluring). Regardless, she took his mind from the other things that haunted him.
    Turning the corner, he walked along the north side of the suburb, finishing up his cigarette and looking to his right, where he could see the water tower looming over the park that rested in the middle of the block. The water tower was immense, one of those that was almost as fat at the bottom as it was at the top but not quite. It reminded him of a more angular chef’s hat.
    He tossed his cigarette into the street, stealing another glance up at the clouds, thinking about the girl he had just seen and looking forward to crawling back into his warm bed.
    The walks always worked.
    Lying in bed that night, Steven was totally unaware of the world that was ready to open up for him.
    The dream. The clouds. The names of the dead. That was just the beginning.
     

 
    Three
    Good Morning, Death
     
    The pupils of Gethsemane High (or Get High, as some of the wittier stoners were fond of calling it) learned of Jeremy Liven’s death over the morning announcements. The principal, Mr. McFee, unable to shift between emotions with the alacrity of an evening newscaster, came on with the announcement about Jeremy’s death and signed off with a moment of silence. Nothing about the upcoming battles of the baseball or softball teams. Nothing about the lunch menu that day. Nothing about any policy changes or the usual