Dark Prince by Russell Moon

Author:Russell Moon [Moon, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061954955
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2002-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

We are finally released from dinner after what seems to be a hundred thousand hours at that table. It may very well have been, with all the time-gymnastics at work.

The Spences wave at us all the way down the road, for as long as they can see us, which is probably a quarter mile of straight path. Every time I look over my shoulder they are still there, lit by the porch lights, still at it, arm in arm and chilling.

Finally it is back to me and Chuck and Eleanor and one sweet, honest piece of country road. Sanity.

“I want to move, Eleanor,” is my first statement when it comes time to assess the evening.

“What?” she says, incredulous.

I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but I was hoping to catch her still coming down from whatever dopey agreeable spell the good doctor had her under. Unfortunately, detox time appears to be instantaneous.

“I don’t like it here anymore,” I say.

“Anymore? Marcus, we just got here.”

“Well, long enough to tell. I get a bad feeling from Blackwater, Eleanor. I want to go. Just you and me and Chuck. And far away this time, like Alaska or Wyoming or one of those sparsely populated places.”

“Marcus,” she says warmly, putting a long arm around my shoulders and forcing us to walk awkwardly but not uncomfortably. “Marcus, you have had a bad time, and you still have to get through it, but you will. You mustn’t blame Blackwater. Blackwater is a perfectly lovely place. It’s got everything we need, right here.”

And everything we don’t, I’m thinking, and when Chuck ambles right up and bumps me from the opposite side, I know he agrees.

“Maybe Alaska will have everything we need,” I say.

She sighs indulgently. “It’s not just that this is a pleasant place, Marcus. I am establishing myself here. I think I have a future here, with the college, with my work with Dr. Spence.”

Shocks, like little dangerous fireworks, go off when she says his name, and I do not like it at all. There is something in the way that she says his name, something stronger than what was in there earlier, and it bodes very ill, I think.

“Eleanor,” I protest.

“Stop,” she says. “You cannot run from your troubles, Marcus. We carry our troubles with us—all of us do. It is a mistake to go looking for external solutions to internal difficulties. It is a trap, it is a diversion, and when you go about things that way, they always catch up to you in the end.”

As she mentions this last bit, there is a screech—followed naturally by Chuck’s mad barking—as a large bird, a hawk, makes what looks like a suicide bomb attack at us from straight above.

“Jesus,” I say, grabbing Eleanor and huddling, without exactly going down to the ground.

At the lowest point, just as the hawk changes course and begins his ascent, Chuck makes an incredible leap, rising a full seven feet off the ground in his lunge for the bird.

It screeches again as Chuck snares silver tailfeathers in his front teeth and falls back to the ground.

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