Candlemoth Read Online Free PDF

pathway
towards the mailbox. If that fish had been anything other than comatose it
would have wriggled from my grip without resistance. Seemed with every step I
took my physical and mental co-ordination slipped away by degrees, and when I
stood beneath the shadow of that tall wooden structure I could feel the
coolness of the house. Despite the season, despite the bold sun and lack of
breeze, despite the midday high that settled around eighty-five degrees, that
house, the Chantry house, exuded a darkness and a dead chill that seemed to
invade the street, seemed to creep through the earth beneath my feet and start
up through my ankles.
        I
glanced back.
        Nathan
Verney stood on the sidewalk, and for the little while I was there beside the
mailbox he was as white as I was.
        I
could see him trembling. Trembling enough to wriggle out of his skin and run
away.
        I
looked down.
        My
shoes seemed a million miles from me.
        I
felt the weight of the fish. Could feel the texture of the linen, and through
that the smooth silver skin of the creature.
        I
looked up, raised my right hand, and with a flick of my thumb I released the
catch and the front of the mailbox popped open. That little door seemed to
spring quickly, and then slow down as it completed its arc. Seemed to slow down
once more and then suddenly gain momentum, and as it approached the post upon
which the mailbox sat it gathered velocity, gathered velocity at such a rate I
believed it would snap right off its hinge.
        But
it didn't.
        That
door just came rocketing back until its rim connected with the post.
        The
sound was like a church bell at midnight.
        Like
a man going at a garbage can with a billy club.
        The
sound of two cars in a head-on up Nine Mile Road.
        I
dropped the fish.
        Nathan
screamed and started to move.
        I felt
like my bladder would bust right open and soak my shoes.
        I
looked down.
        The
piece of linen was there between my feet, and within it the fish, stunned now,
suffering another degree of unconsciousness, and it moved ever so slightly from
side to side.
        Why I
reached down and grabbed it, why I scooped up that fish, linen and all, and
threw it into the mailbox I'll never know. It was as if a crime had already
been committed. There was the evidence, right there on the path. The evidence
had to be hidden, had to be concealed, and the only place at hand was right
there in Mrs. Chantry's mailbox.
        And
that's where it went.
        And
once that special delivery had been made I went too.
        Like
a comet with turbo-charged afterburners, we hightailed it down the street until
we arrived, gasping and sweating and laughing fit to bust wide open, at the
edge of the Lake.
        Nathan
could barely breathe. He had to sit with his head between his knees, his hands
gripping his ankles for a good five minutes before he could even speak. His
face was streaked with tears, his eyes red and buggy, and when he tried to
stand up he fell sideways like a plank and just lay there.
        Never
been so frightened.
        Never
laughed so much.
        Never
seen my father so angry as when he came home that night clutching a
fish-smelling piece of linen that Mrs. Chantry had so kindly given to him with
the message: Pass that on to your son, Mister Ford, and tell him and his
little negro friend that I did enjoy the fish.
        My pa
switched me that time. Switched me good in the woodhouse.
        Next
day I stayed inside.
        Nathan
didn't come over. Nathan's daddy didn't switch him, didn't believe a child
should be beaten. Believed the best discipline for a child was to have him stay
indoors and copy out scriptures until his hand didn't work no more. Write
until you're wrong, Nathan would tell me.
        Later
we spoke of Mrs. Chantry and the fish. Believed she ate it whole and raw and
talked about how her neck