“Leave me alone.”
She frowned prettily as the doors closed.
“That ain’t no way to talk to a girl.” A homeless man sitting on the train, bulging shopping bags piled around him, gave Brendan a reproachful look.
Brendan ignored him. No one else was on board so he had his pick of seats. He plunked down on a bench facing the platform, well away from the homeless man. The train started to roll. The girl jogged along until she was even with him, waving as she ran alongside. Brendan tried to ignore her. The train picked up speed. The girl kept pace, running with ease and grace. She puffed out her cheeks and pretended she was having trouble keeping up. Despite his annoyance, Brendan found her performance amusing. A small smile tugged rebelliously at the corner of his mouth.
Suddenly, she threw up her hands in alarm and dropped headlong from sight. Brendan leapt up to see if she was okay, pressing his face against the window beside the homeless man. The girl popped up and banged on the glass, scaring Brendan so that he staggered back and fell in his seat. She pointed and laughed, once again keeping pace with the train. Brendan rolled his eyes. She stuck out her tongue.
The end of the platform loomed. The girl waved goodbye and dropped back out of sight. Brendan didn’t wave back.
The homeless man had been watching the whole thing. “She can sure motor,” he said, eyes wide. “That’s some girl, there.”
“Yeah,” Brendan had to admit.
He took the subway north to Spadina. Rather than take the streetcar from the station, he decided to walk home through the softly falling snow. People were bundled up against the weather, but Brendan hardly noticed the cold. The sun was low in the grey sky.
By the time he got to what he’d taken to calling the Snoring Rock, it was already dark. Brendan came level with the black stone and found himself compelled to stop. Lately he’d avoided this place. Something about the monolith sitting in the schoolyard made him uneasy. He read the little brass plaque that decorated the stone.
THIS BASIC IGNEOUS ROCK WAS FOUND AT A DEPTH OF TWELVE FEET DURING THE COURSE OF EXCAVATION FOR THIS SCHOOL. THE COMPOSITION IS OF A VERY RARE TYPE AND IS ASSUMED TO HAVE BEEN CARRIED HERE FROM CARIBOU LAKE NORTH OF PARRY SOUND BY A GLACIER DURING THE GREAT ICE AGE 12,000 YEARS AGO.
Brendan could barely imagine the force required to transport a stone over such a distance and bury it so deep in the ground. Thinking about it made him uncomfortable, perhaps because the rock reminded him of the first terrifying and confusing day when he’d stumbled into his new life. He and Dmitri had been walking past this very spot when he’d heard the stone “snoring.” He remembered the harsh warning the stone had barked in his mind, telling him to stay away.
So why was he here? He could have easily taken another route. He stood in the yellow light of the street lamp with the snow gently falling around him, staring at the mottled black surface of the stone.
The world faded from his awareness. The surface of the stone swam before him. What at first seemed to be a chaos of bumps, gouges, and cracks began to shift and resolve into patterns. Brendan struggled to make sense of the markings, but their meaning was just beyond his perception. He felt that if he could just concentrate a little more, he’d be able to puzzle them out.
He heard a voice whispering his name. The voice was soft, insistent, and hypnotic.
Breandan.
Breandan.
I am waiting.
Breandan.
“Brendan!”
The voice was suddenly loud. Brendan came to his senses to find that he had climbed over the little fence surrounding the black rock and had laid his bare hands on its rough surface.
“Hey, Brendan!” His father stood on the sidewalk looking at him, concern plain on his face. “Are you okay?”
Brendan dropped his hands to his sides, embarrassed and confused. He didn’t remember climbing the fence and approaching the stone.
“Hi, Dad,” he said lamely, stepping back onto the sidewalk. “Where are you coming from?”
“Work. They called me in to cover a shift at the cafe. And I had to pick up some stuff your mother ordered.” He held up a couple of shopping bags. He cocked his head to the side and looked at Brendan again. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah! Yeah!” Brendan said. “I was, uh… I just thought I saw some graffiti tags on that rock. But it wasn’t anything. Just a shadow.” He smiled lamely.
“Oh, okay,” his father said slowly. “That’s good. All right, then, shall we go home and see what’s for dinner?”
“Sure!”
Dinner was sloppy joes and homemade french fries, Brendan’s favourite. There was also a big salad, since his mother always forced him to eat at least one plate of greens as well. He demolished two joes in short order, suddenly famished. He still felt weird after his latest encounter with the Snoring Rock. He guessed he had to call it the Talking Rock now. He pondered the experience while he ate, his mum and dad chatting happily about their days.
Toward the end of the meal, he noticed that Dee was quieter than usual. He kept catching her looking at him.
“What?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” she sneered.
“Then stop looking at me.”
“I’m not.”
“Good!”
“Good!”
“Wow,” his father laughed. “Some siblings have trouble communicating, but you two are so in sync. It’s heartwarming.”
“Time to decorate the tree!” His mother was eager to defuse any brother-sister meltdown. “Let’s get to it.”
The next hour was spent re-enacting a ritual that occurred every year. His father would string the lights and mildly curse when he couldn’t find the one bulb that was burnt out and keeping the whole string from shining. Then there was the argument over tinsel placement: throw or drape carefully. Then taking the ornaments out of the boxes, finding which ones had broken and which were just too plain ugly to use this year and should be retired.
Finally, all that was left was the star on the top. His mother climbed the ladder and placed the antique silver star that had been in her family for generations on the spindly top bough of the blue spruce. The star meant a lot to his mother. The year before his grandmother had passed away, she’d handed it down to his mum. His mother and his father had no living parents, so any token that reminded them of those who were gone was special.
His mother was just climbing down the ladder, helped by his father, when the doorbell rang.
“Who could that be?” she asked.
“Beats me.” His father shrugged. “Are you expecting anyone, Dee?”
“No.” Delia shook her head.
“Brendan?”
Brendan shook his head. The bell rang again.
“Well, I know one way to find out who’s at the door.” Brendan’s father pushed back his chair and stood. “I’m going to open it. Don’t try and stop me.”
Brendan followed his father down the hall to the front door. After peeking through the curtains that shrouded the tiny window in the top of the door, Brendan’s father grasped the handle and swung it open.
Brendan’s heart sank. Standing on the front porch in the glow of the porch light was Charles. She was the picture of thin teenage waif in ragged jeans and a Clash T-shirt. An oversized leather jacket draped her shoulders.
