The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

Author:Keith Donohue
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Fairy Tales, Legends & Mythology, Folk Tales, Fiction
ISBN: 9780307386939
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2007-05-08T04:00:00+00:00

I did not confess to Smaolach the reason for my agitation. Speck had all but abandoned our

friendship, withdrawing into some hard and lonesome core. Even after we made the move, she devoted

herself to making our new camp feel like home, and she spent the sunlit hours teaching Chavisory to

walk again. Exhausted by her efforts, Speck fell into a deep sleep early each night. She stayed in her

burrow on cold and wet March days, tracing out an intricate design on a rolled parchment, and when I

asked her about her draw-ing, she stayed quiet and aloof. Early mornings, I'd see her at the western

edge of camp, clad in her warmest coat, sturdy shoes on her feet, pondering the horizon. I remember

approaching her from behind and placing my hand on her shoulder. For the first time ever, she flinched at

my touch, and when she turned to face me, she trembled as if shaking off the urge to cry.

"What's the matter, Speck? Are you okay?"

"I've been working too hard. There's one last snow on the way." She smiled and took my hand.

"We'll steal off at the first flurries."

When the snow finally came days later, I had fallen asleep under a pile of blankets. She woke me,

white flakes gathering in her dark hair. "It's time," she whispered as quietly as the delicate susurrus

through the pines. Speck and I meandered along familiar trails, taking care to be hidden, and waited at

the edge of the forest nearest the library for dusk to arrive. The snowfall obscured the sun’s descent, and

the headlights of the few cars on the road tricked us into going too soon. We squeezed into our space

only to hear footfall overhead as the librarians began to close for the night. To stay warm and quiet, we

huddled beneath a blanket, and she quickly fell asleep against me. The rhythm of her beating heart and

respiration, and the heat from her skin, quickly lulled me to sleep, too, and we woke together in pitch

black. She lit the lamps, and we went to our books.

Speck had been reading Flannery O'Connor, and I was wading in deep Water with Wallace

Stevens. But I could not concentrate on his abstractions, and instead stared at her between the lines. I

had to tell her, but the words were inadequate, incomplete, and perhaps incomprehensible—and yet

noth-ing else would do. She was my closest friend in the world, yet a greater desire for more had

accompanied me around for years. I could not rationalize or explain it away for another moment. Speck

was engrossed in The Violent Bear It Away. A bent arm propped up her head, and she was lying

across the floor, her hair obscuring her face.

"Speck, I have something to tell you."

"Just a moment. One more sentence."

"Speck, if you could put down that book for a second."

"Almost there." She stuck her finger between the pages and closed the novel.

She looked at me, and in one second my mood swung from elation to fear. "I have been thinking

for a long, long time, Speck, about you. I want to tell you how I feel.

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