Out of Body by Jeffrey Ford

Author:Jeffrey Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

10

THE WEATHER WAS MUCH nicer that night, a soft breeze instead of a driving wind and rain. The sky was clear and the constellations looked like illustrations in a star chart. As Owen and Melody bounded along past the Busy Bee, toward the center of town, he remembered how he’d seen the miasma at a distance the previous night. When he told her, Melody said, “You were probably better off being on your own last night. Look how well you handled all of it. You need more nights like that and then I can leave you to explore alone.”

“The incident with the cutters was almost fatal,” he reminded her, feeling a pang that one day, she’d no longer travel the night world with him. He felt it might be too lonely to endure solo.

When they reached downtown, he showed her Margrave Street, and upon seeing the entrance to it off Cobb, the main street of Westwend, she mentioned that she once had a friend who’d lived in the house on the corner.

“What did you have in mind for when we get there?” asked Melody.

“I just wanted you to see it. Tell me what you think. Tell me how I can warn the old man, if it’s not too late.”

She nodded. “I agree with your assessment of what you encountered.”

They reached the spot where Owen and Feit had stood the night before. Again, the lights were on in some of the rooms and music drifted out. “Barber, Adagio for Strings, Opus Three,” she said.

“You’re full of surprises,” said Owen as they crossed the street.

“I listen to classical music all day long,” she said. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

He nodded and then ascended the steps to the front door. Before he could take a breath, he and Melody were standing in the dimly lit foyer, peering down the hallway. They proceeded through the rooms. He told her that the mural adorning the wall in the children’s section of the library had supposedly been painted by the old man. She stopped walking when he said it, but then quickly continued as if she didn’t want him to catch her hesitation.

“What is it?” he said to her.

“Nothing really. Just sometimes, when you fall into a situation in the night world where coincidences stack up, it could be a warning of danger.”

“Are you saying that about this situation?” he asked as he stopped at the entrance to the next darkened room.

“No. That’s why I tried to hide my reaction to what you told me. There isn’t enough of a conspiracy of reality here to warrant it. I’m offering a heads-up for the future. I don’t want you to get lost in that mental morass. Stay clear. We have to help this poor guy.”

When they found the old painter in the same room Owen had encountered him in the previous night, he was sitting in the same chair, holding the brush so it hovered just above the canvas. He could be perceived to be conducting the music, much sharper in the room than it had been out on the street.

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