The Meq by Steve Cash

Author:Steve Cash [Cash, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Historical, Immortalism, Children
ISBN: 9780330493154
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2004-01-15T23:00:00+00:00

Twelve hours. It was just twelve hours from the time Ray had tossed his bowler that we were both boarding a train for New Orleans. Yet, in that short span I was witness to something so rare that Eder told me later it had never happened in all her time among the Giza. She had only heard mention of it through her parents in legends and stories from the Time of Ice.

It began with embraces and awkward introductions in the alcove, and Scott Joplin assuming we were family. Then Mitch rounded him up and Ciela cleared the house with shouts of “Out! Out” (in English). Nicholas helped show the last of the stragglers out with the utmost courtesy.

Carolina decided to leave the house as it was and clean up in the morning. She suggested we all gather in the kitchen around the long table, which we did, and Owen Bramley immediately began a long explanation for their late arrival, which was not unusual. Since I had known him, he had never been anywhere at the time he was expected to be there. “When I heard the news from Carolina about Solomon,” he said, “I was damn near inconsolable. However, when she mentioned that you were already in St. Louis”—and he nodded at me—“then I remembered that Ray had asked me to wire him if I ever heard you were back in the States. I had trouble with a man in Boise, but after I told him . . .”

As he rambled on, I looked around the room. Ciela was busy at the stove, oblivious to the fact that anything at all was out of the ordinary. Nicholas stayed close to Carolina, first standing, then sitting beside her. He was still sorting through new realities and fears though he was handling it well. Without warning, his world had assumed a missing daughter, a pregnant wife, a dead friend and mentor, and now his kitchen was full of beings out of some fairy tale he might have read to his daughter. He listened to Owen Bramley, but rarely looked at him. In fact, neither of them looked very long or very often at the other, but they were always more than cordial to each other. Owen Bramley mostly paced as he talked, wiping his glasses when he paused. I’m not sure what Nicholas thought of Eder. He might not even have thought of her as Meq, even though he knew she was Nova’s mother. He would have seen a woman, about Carolina’s age, with slightly exotic features, who could easily have been from Spanish Town on South Broadway. I know Carolina was fascinated with her. This was the first time she had ever met an “adult” Meq. And Nova broke her heart when she handed Carolina a carefully wrapped bundle of sprigs, saying, “It’s Solomon’s seal. It’s a herb that will come back every year and bring back the memory of your missing friend.” When I heard her voice, I knew I’d heard it before, recently.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.