The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards

Author:Kim Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

The Secrets of a Fire King

“JASPER,” SHE WHISPERED, HER SHADOW MOONCAST AGAINST THE tent wall. Night smell of damp canvas and a dark wind off the river. My mouth watered, I imagined her lips as they rounded out my name. She whispered “Jasper!” And I told her, “I am coming.” I said, “Wait,” struggling into my clothes. “I am coming.” I crawled right over Ogleby the snake man, who was snoring with his mouth wide open, his big feet blocking the door flap. She moved beside me, beyond the canvas wall, yet with me, just inches away. Then her shadow drew up suddenly and fell into the greater darkness. By the time I got outside, she was gone.

I stood there, searching, tents and wagons an eerie white in the moonlight. We were camped in the fairgrounds by the river. I listened past Ogleby’s great snores and the nearby rustle of the animals and the tin pans of the mess wagon tapping in the breeze. I listened hard, to the susurration of the water rising up, to the air moving lightly through the trees. It was quiet but for the wind and thus, when the preacher spoke, his voice breaking the silence like a whip, I jumped a mile.

He said, “You are treading near fire, Jasper. You had better beware.”

My fists clenched at his words, for I knew my young and willing girl was gone, my hours of sweet talk wasted. “The righteous need no candle,” he went on, mocking my night blindness, “neither light of the sun.”

“Leave me alone,” I demanded, turning toward his voice. “Do you hear?”

“Oh, I hear you,” he said, his voice so soft I had to strain to listen. “But the great question is, do you hear? Jasper? Do you hear what the spirit sayeth?”

He shifted, stepping from the shadows. Moonlight streamed down his pale skin, caught on his ring, heavy gold, stones inset like a fireburst, which he waved before the sinners in each new town like a tiny piece of heaven, hard and shiny, of value beyond reckoning, nearly impossible to attain. The next day I might even see my sweet-talk girl hovering beside him, bedazzled and saved and lost to me forever. I stood poised, waiting. I would not stagger after him like a fool, but like a fool I was furious enough to fire the argument that had been smoldering between us all these years.

“You saved me once already,” I reminded him. “And once was too much for any lifetime.”

“Blasphemer,” he said, his voice a whisper now, floating to me amid the tree sounds, the water murmurings. “You will burn in a lake of fire.”

I knew he was gone. But of course, so was she. I walked to the edge of the river, leaving the cluster of tents behind me, willing her to appear, firm and supple, draped with light. The wind rustled in the leaves, tapped the hanging pans, but he had scared her good, and despite my longing she did not come again.

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