The Quarry Boy by Fessenden Jamie

Author:Fessenden, Jamie [Fessenden, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-15T18:30:00+00:00

That evening they sat together in the kitchen in companionable silence, warmed by the stove while the rain continued to beat against the glass windowpanes. They’d foregone Nacktkultur in favor of their usual attire, though August had at least left his jacket and waistcoat off. He continued to delve into Summer’s thick tome, while Josiah reread Stoker’s Dracula. The latter seemed macabre, given the circumstances, but when August queried about it, Josiah replied, “As you said, the folklore contained in this novel is fairly accurate.”

“True, though Stoker was mostly interested in Eastern European folklore. You might be better served to read Summers or Sabine Baring-Gould.” He indicated the chapter he was reading with his index finger.

Josiah regarded the book in his hands suspiciously. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll leave you to sort out the legends. I happen to enjoy Dracula.”

“Read to me, then.” He closed The Vampire, His Kith and Kin—of which he was admittedly tiring—and sat back in his chair, arms folded across his middle.

Josiah huffed in amusement but obliged him, reading aloud the passage in which Harker describes a woman running to the castle door, screaming for the child the count has kidnapped. He watches in horror as Dracula stands with the child in an upstairs window and summons a pack of wolves to devour her.

“You read well,” August said when Josiah ended the scene and dramatically closed the book.

“Like I said, our mother taught us to read.”

“I don’t mean that you’re proficient,” he explained patiently. “That goes without saying. I mean, you read well. You breathe life into it. You make it interesting and engrossing. I would not say that about the majority of readers I’ve listened to in the past.”

“Oh!” Josiah blushed and glanced away, smiling shyly. “In that case, thank you.” He set the book on the table. “I have our mother to thank for that, as well. She read to the neighbor children now and then.”

“So I’ve heard. Please tell me she did not read Dracula to them.”

Josiah barked out a laugh. “She did. Why not? It’s a great story.”

It was, if one enjoyed such lurid tales. The greater question was whether or not the children were old enough for books of that nature. August was in no position to judge, having no children of his own. “Just so.” He stood and crossed the kitchen to the window, tapping his cane lightly on the floorboards. “What other ‘great stories’ did your mother read to the children?”

“It wasn’t only children.” Josiah wandered to the window, as if curious what August might be looking at. There was nothing, save the sun setting over the farmhouse across the way, but night would be upon them soon. “Some nights, the kitchen was packed with people—children and their parents, even old Dick Evans, the widower on Watson Lane. They all wanted to hear the stories. Ma was a great storyteller. She read them H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde—”

“She was fond of fantastic stories, I take it.

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