A Song of Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

for dinner. I saw you eating. Later you went up to your room, and I saw you there too.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Through the window.’
    ‘But it’s high up.’
    ‘Yes. You have a lovely view.’
    And even in her dream, Amanda shivered.
    ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
    ‘My name is Jennifer.’
    ‘Do you live around here?’
    ‘I suppose I do, now.’
    A part of Amanda wished that she could see Jennifer’s face. Another part of Amanda was glad that she could not.
    ‘You saw him drop the bag, didn’t you?’ said Jennifer.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And you picked it up.’
    ‘Yes. Did I do something bad? I didn’t mean to.’
    ‘No. You put it back where you found it, and that’s the important thing. Do you understand what it is?’
    ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Amanda paused and reconsidered. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘It’s a marker, but I don’t know what it’s supposed to be marking.’
    ‘Progress,’ said Jennifer, and Amanda thought that although she looked like a little girl, she spoke like someone much older. ‘Each day he tries to walk a little farther. Often it’s only a few steps. And he marks the spot, so he will remember to take at least one step more the next day.’
    ‘Why does he do that?’
    ‘He’s been hurt. He’s still hurting. But he’s getting stronger.’
    ‘Is he—?’
    But Jennifer stood and turned her back on Amanda. Their conversation was over.
    ‘Why can’t I see your face?’ shouted Amanda, and she was sorry for asking as soon as the words left her mouth.
    Jennifer stopped walking.
    ‘Do you want to see it?’ she said. ‘Do you really?’
    Slowly she turned, her right hand lifting, pushing the hair away from her face.
    And Amanda woke up screaming to find sand in her bed.

5
    C ory Bloom had been Boreas’s chief of police for two years, and remained the youngest person ever to have occupied that position. By contrast, her predecessor, one Erik Lange, had been the longest serving chief in the state when he retired, and even then the town pretty much had to force him out at gunpoint. Lange died soon after retiring, a fact that Bloom didn’t particularly regret, although she kept such thoughts to herself. It was said by Lange’s admirers – of whom, by the end, there were few – that the old chief’s heart couldn’t bear a life of relative indolence, although Bloom would have been surprised if his autopsy had revealed a heart larger than an acorn.
    Lange was of sound German stock – incredibly, the old coot’s father was still alive, knocking on the door of his centennial – and ran Boreas as his personal fiefdom. He was a chauvinist and a homophobe, and the best that could be said about him was that he kept the crime rate down, although it hadn’t increased noticeably since his departure, which suggested that Boreas hadn’t exactly been Detroit or New Orleans to begin with. By the end of his reign, it was clear that the townsfolk wanted a change, and Bloom was appointed chief with relatively little fuss. It helped that she was married to a man who hailed originally from Pirna, and – although nothing was ever said to this effect – that she had no children.
    For the most part, the transition to Boreas from Bangor, where Bloom had served before applying for the chief’s job, had been painless, aided by the unanticipated bonus of Lange’s sudden demise, as otherwise he would have been unable to resist sticking his nose in her business, and would have carried himself as the chief-in-exile. Yes, there were some who muttered about the public face of law enforcement being relatively young and, more to the point, female, but Bloom had the right touch, and even those who would happily have erected a statue to Erik Lange in the center of town had gradually warmed to her. A handful of holdouts remained, though, including Lange’s deputy chief, Carl Foster, who threw his toys out of his playpen and left the force when the town passed him over in favor of Bloom. Good