Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 Read Online Free PDF

blinking,
"tonight you're here, you're there. One minute one way, the next minute
another. I wanted to take you to the dance tonight for old times' sake. I meant
nothing by it when I first asked you. And then, when we were standing at the
well, I knew something had changed, really changed, about you. You were
different. There was something new and soft, something . . ." He groped
for a word. "I don't know, I can't say. The way you looked. Something
about your voice. And I know I'm in love with you again."
                   "No," said Cecy. "With me, with
me"
                   "And I'm afraid of being in love with
you," he said. "You'll hurt me again."
                   "I might," said Ann.
                   No, no, I'd love you with all my heart!
thought Cecy. Ann, say it to him, say it for me. Say you'd love him with all
your heart.
                   Ann said nothing.
                   Tom moved quietly closer and put his hand up
to hold her chin. "I'm going away. I've got a job a hundred miles from
here. Will you miss me?"
                   "Yes," said Ann and Cecy.
                   “May I kiss you good-by, then?"
                   "Yes," said Cecy before anyone else
could speak.
                   He placed his lips to the strange mouth. He
kissed the strange mouth and he was trembling.
                   Ann sat like a white statue.
                   "Ann!" said Cecy. "Move your
arms, hold him!"
                   She sat like a carved wooden doll in the
moonlight.
                   Again he kissed her lips.
                   "I do love you," whispered Cecy.
"I'm here, it's me you saw in her eyes, it's me, and I love you if she
never will."
                   He moved away and seemed like a man who had
run a long distance. He sat beside her. "I don't know what's happening.
For a moment there ..."
                   "Yes?" asked Cecy.
                   "For a moment I thought—" He put his
hands to his eyes. "Never mind. Shall I take you home now?"
                   "Please," said Ann Leary.
                   He clucked to the horse, snapped the reins
tiredly, and drove the rig away. They rode in the rustle and slap and motion of
the moordit rig in the still early, only eleven
o'clock spring night, with the shining meadows and sweet fields of
clover gliding by.
                   And Cecy, looking at the fields and meadows,
thought, It would be worth it, it would be worth everything to be with him from
this night on. And she heard her parents' voices again, faintly, "Be
careful. You wouldn't want to lose your magical powers, would you—married to a
mere mortal? Be careful. You wouldn't want that."
                   Yes, yes, thought Cecy, even that I'd give up,
here and now, if he would have me. I wouldn't need to roam the spring nights
then, I wouldn't need to live in birds and dogs and cats and foxes, I'd need
only to be with him. Only him. Only him.
                   The road passed under, whispering.
                   "Tom," said Ann at last.
                   "What?" He stared coldly at the
road, the horse, the trees, the sky, the stars.
                   "If you're ever, in years to come, at any
time, in Green Town , Illinois ,
a few miles from here, will you do me a favor?"
                   "Perhaps."
                   "Will you do me the favor of stopping and
seeing a friend of mine?" Ann Leary said this haltingly, awkwardly.
                   "Why?"
                   "She's a good friend. I've told her of
you. I'll give you her address. Just a moment." When the rig stopped at
her farm she drew forth a pencil and paper from her small purse and wrote in
the moonlight, pressing the paper to her knee. "There it is. Can you