'Don't like the tables turned, do you, boy?'
'I ... what?' He looked over the man's shoulder and saw a dozen students in the hall. Some were leaning against the wall and talking softly, others had handkerchiefs pressed over their noses. A few saw him and grinned; the rest saw him and glared.
'It was a stupid thing to do, Boyd.'
'Do what?' His nose hurt. He had a headache that reached to the back of his neck. He pointed at the vial. 'That? I didn't do that.'
'Then who did? The ghost of Samuel Ashford?'
His head hurt; god, his head hurt.
'Well, Boyd?'
He tried to explain about his accident, about how he'd been running up the stairs when someone-two or three of them, he didn't know for sure, he didn't see-when someone ran past him and put that bottle in his hand.
Hedley tilted his head back and cocked it to one side.
'But I didn't do anything!'
'Mr. Boyd, keep your voice down.'
'But I didn't do it!'
Hedley grabbed his arm again, and Don shook him off.
'I didn't do it, damnit,' he said sullenly.
Hedley was about to reach again when a murmuring made him turn and see Norman Boyd striding through his class. The principal paused to speak to several students and send them on their way, presumably to the nurse, with a pat on the shoulder. When he was close enough, Hedley explained over Don's silent protest that someone had opened the lab door in the middle of a test and dumped a bottle of hydrogen sulfide onto the floor.
'From this,' he said, displaying the vial with a dramatic flourish,
'which I found in your son's possession, over there in the stairwell.'
Boyd cleared his throat and lifted an eyebrow.
Don told him, words clipped, attitude defensive, and when he was done, he dared his father with a look not to believe him.
Boyd took the vial, sniffed, and grimaced. 'My office.'
'But Dad-'
'Do as you're told! Go down to my office.'
Don looked to the chemistry teacher, who was smiling smugly, looked to the kids still in the hall, whispering and grinning. The odor of rotten eggs was making him sick. Boyd stoppered the vial with his handkerchief and gave the order a third time.
'Yeah,' he muttered, turned, and walked away.
'Hey, Don,' someone called as he went through the door, 'tell him the giant crow did it!'
Norman slouched in his chair, a hand on one cheek, one eye closed as if sighting an invisible weapon. There was a stack of reports to be filed when he found the time to read them, the in basket was crowded with letters to respond to, the out basket held more files he hadn't bothered to look over, and in the middle of the blotter was Adam Hedley's vial with the handkerchief still dangling from the top.
A finger reached out to touch it, poke at it, shift it around, before the hand drew back and covered his other cheek.
Norm boy, he thought, for an intelligent man, you are one very stupid sonofabitch.'
A chill settled on the back of his neck and he shuddered violently to banish it, and glanced up to see that the office was dark.
A look behind and out the window, and he groaned; the sun had gone down, the streetlamps were on, and the traffic on School Street was mainly people coming home from shopping and work.
He was virtually alone, then, in the building. Just him in his office, and the custodial staff sweeping the hallways and auditorium, washing the blackboards, and probably stealing him blind from the supply room in the basement.
'Stupid,' he muttered, staring at the vial. 'Stupid, and dumb, and you ought to be shot.'
Jesus, how could he believe Don had really tossed that bottle into Hedley's room? How could he believe it? Or was he trying too hard to believe the boy was really normal, doing normal things like any normal kid.
That was the problem-thinking Don was special. He wasn't. He was perfectly, sometimes unnervingly fine, with quirks like any other kid to set him apart. And there was Norman Boyd, forgetting who they both were and playing King of the Mountain, Lord of the Hill, laying down the law as if he were Moses.
As if he were his own father.
For the first time in ages he wished Joyce were here, to remind him that he wasn't Wallace Boyd still working the mills, that Don wasn't Norman struggling out of the gutter. He recalled with a silent groan the day Joyce had told him she was pregnant the first time. He had sworn on everything he held dear that he would do better, that he would be there-a harbor for childhood storms, a rock to hang on to when the winds grew too strong. A father; nothing more, nothing less.
He covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath.
It was the pressure, that's what it was. After Sam had died, the pressure had begun; he didn't know how, and he wasn't sure why, but it was there. Waiting for him.
Whispering to him that Donald had to be protected at all costs. And when he recognized the futility of it, and the unreason, he hadn't realized how far in the opposite direction he had gone with the boy's life.
It was the pressure.
What he needed was a respite. What he needed was for Falcone and his teachers to cave in and stop the strike. Then they'd be off his back, and the board would be off his back, and the press and the mayor and the whole damned world would leave him alone to reacquaint himself with his son.
Twice he had blown it-first, Don's announcement about being a veterinarian, and now this afternoon.
Twice, and suddenly he was very afraid.
His wife was falling out of love with him.
What would happen if his son did the same?
... and so the crow saw how bad the little boy was feeling, and he flew out of the tree and into the night ...
The park was deserted. A breeze crept through the branches and shook loose a few leaves, spiraling them down through the dark, through the falls of white light, to the ground, to the paths, to the pond where they spun in lazy turns, creating islands that floated just below the surface.
No one walked.
The traffic's noise was smothered.
... and found the evil king alone in his bedroom, and he flew in through the window, and before the evil king could wake up and defend himself, the giant crow had plucked out both his eyes!
The only concentrated light was set around the oval. A dim light, and there was no warmth to it, no weight, as he sat on a bench and stared at the water, rolling his shoulders to drive off the cold.
His eyes were closed.
His lips moved so slightly they might have been trembling.
And then the giant crow flew through the castle until he found the evil king's brother, who was just as evil and just as mean, and the giant crow tore out his throat with one swipe of his giant talons.
The houses that faced the park were hidden by the trees and the width of the land, and the boulevard that ran past it on the south was too far away to matter. He was alone; no one would bother him unless he stayed until dawn, and on a night like this not even a tramp would try to make a bed on the redwood benches. He was alone. His hands were clasped tightly between his knees, and his jacket-was too light for the sudden temperature drop, turning the air brittle and the leaves to brown glass.
A noise in his throat; his shoulders slumped a little more.
He had waited nearly an hour in his father's office before the man finally walked in. Don had jumped to his feet and was ordered down again. A fussing with papers, instructions not to interrupt him, and he was lectured forever on the image both of them had to project-to the faculty as well as to the student body. Norman brandished the vial as if he were going to throw it. Don explained for the second time how the kid-he was sure now it was
