Coming of Age Read Online Free PDF

and breathed a sigh of relief as he flicked off the headlights. For a moment he sat in the darkness, letting his eyes adjust. Then, opening the door, he reached over and scooped up the sleeping boy beside him. Maneuvering carefully to avoid banging either of their heads, he got out of the car and carried the child into the dark building.
    Inside, he headed straight for the kitchen table, the only flat surface he was willing to try and get to in complete darkness. He made it without running into anything and laid the boy down. Feeling his way to the nearest door jamb, he flicked on a light and then reached around the door to his study to turn on the lights there. Picking up the boy, he transferred him to the study couch and then went back to the car to retrieve his small travel bag, confirming on the way that the lights didn’t show from outside the cabin. Back in the study, he collected the vials and hypodermics he would need and set them out neatly on the end table by the couch. Finally, he pulled a chair alongside the sleeping boy and sat down.
    For a long moment he gazed into the child’s face as an odd mix of emotions swirled inside him. The decision on whether to proceed was still not irrevocable … and the fact that he’d made it this far without getting caught meant that choice was now solely in his hands. Even at this late stage that wasn’t something he could casually dismiss.
    But the moment passed. Reaching over to the end table, he carefully prepared the three hypos he would need: the first with a chemical to neutralize what remained of the sleeping drug in the boy’s system, the second with a mild hypnotic. In the third … Jarvis squinted at the clear brown fluid, marveling again at how innocent the stuff seemed. Certainly there was nothing in its appearance to suggest its creation had cost four years of blood-sweat … or that it might very well turn Tigrin society upside down as drastically as the sudden appearance of the teekay talent had nearly two hundred years earlier. Brown dynamite—a kiloton of it in every hypo.
    Feeling a tension in his jaw, he put the vial down carefully and picked up the first hypo and a disinfectant swab. Cleaning a patch of skin on the boy’s upper arm, he injected the neutralizer and swabbed over the needle mark. Moving a couple of centimeters down, he repeated the procedure with the second hypo. Then, his hand on the boy’s pulse, he settled back to wait.
    He’d preferred to err on the side of caution with the doses, with the result that it took nearly an hour for the child to drift from his original comalike sleep into the half-awake state Jarvis needed. But finally he was ready.
    â€œColin, can you hear me?” Jarvis asked softly.
    The boy stirred, and his eyes opened into slits that still showed mostly white. “Uh-huh,” he murmured.
    â€œI’m going to tell you some things, Colin, and I want you to promise me you’ll remember. Okay?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œOkay. Open your eyes and look at me.” Colin did so, and Jarvis continued, “My name is Matthew Caleb. I’m a friend of yours and the Brimmers, and you’ll be staying with me for a few months—a sort of vacation in the woods. You’re very excited and happy to be here, of course, and will want to stay as long as you can. Will you remember all of that?’
    â€œOkay.”
    There were other things Jarvis wanted to tell him, but they could wait for another day now that the groundwork had been laid. “Good. Now, turn your head and look into the corner over there. Do you see the red disk? I want you to try and lift it straight up along the metal bar.”
    Colin nodded and Jarvis turned his attention to the corner. The device there was essentially a homemade version of a standard hive teekay tester. Twenty metal disks, each weighing one kilogram, rested on a vertical pole that was tapered from bottom to top; the