His Dark Ways Read Online Free PDF Page A

This will be the second Christmas we’ll spend without Mom. Not that we really celebrate as a family anyway, Dad always has stuff going on at church to help house the poor and feed them on that day. I wonder how Daniel celebrated the holidays when he was alive. There I go again letting him slip into my thoughts—the shape of black hair falling close to deep eyes and teeth slightly overlapping in the most beautiful way. I place my hand over the once was clay handprint on my face and fall into a partial day dream. I sit up straight and try to break the spell of idiocracy I’m under, and tell myself I don’t have an addiction to anything or anyone and focus on the road.
    When I reach Amy’s, I park in front of where Sebastian stands at the fence. He’s leaning his heavy head over the barbed wire to greet me.
    Ears perk up straight, and large nostrils breathe warm air over my hands as he sniffs me out. With an outstretched arm I rub the center of his nose. “Hey you, I haven’t seen you in a while.” I reach in my pocket and pull out a cherry red apple. “I brought you a treat.” With my thumb tucked in and palm flattened, I offer him the apple. He lets out a short huff and rejects it. Gosh, what’s wrong with all these animals this morning? “Bastian, you’ve never turned down an apple.”
    He trails off slashing his tail in circles with ears tucked back like he’s irritated. Maybe he won’t be as moody if I give him his real breakfast.
    I step into the barn, grab a pitch fork, and heave out a pile of hay into his stall. “Bastian, come on, breakfast.” He stands far out in the corral facing me and doesn’t budge. Well this is a first. Did Amy feed him already? Maybe her mom did? But that would be a miracle. I wait a minute. Sebastian digs a front hoof into the frozen ground barely denting it and hollers out as if he’s telling me to leave. “Okay, fine. Your loss though.” I take the apple out of my pocket, wave it in the air, and tease him with its shiny red coating. Juice drips over my bottom lip as I sink my teeth into it. “See, it’s delicious.”
    Amy startles me. “Damn, you’re early.”
    Her hair’s still wet. The ends are crystallized—nearly frozen from the cold.
    “Yeah, I had a hard time sleeping.”
    Deep down I get the urge to tell her everything about Daniel, but a hint of jealousy sets in. What if I told her and she tried to visit him? She’s into freaky shit and might try to send him away with one of her spells or worse yet, steal him. Amy waves her hand in front of my face. “You all right?”
    “Yeah. What’s up with Sebastian? Did you feed him already?”
    “No, I just got done feeding the other horses” she pauses and hollers out, “Sebastian.” He doesn’t budge. “That’s weird. Well he is getting pretty fat. Maybe I’ve just been feeding him too much?” She gives me a second glance. “You sure you okay?”
    “Just tired.”
    “I know the feeling. Come in a sec? I need to get Mom situated for the day before we head out.”
    “You need help?”
    Amy’s wearing the stress of losing her dad with hunched shoulders and weighty eyes. “Probably.”
    The smell of dirtied laundry overtakes my senses when we walk in. Her mom’s antidepressants and other pills that have been making her numb to life line the fireplace mantle like I’ve entered aisle fifteen at the drug store. Amy moves some of her Mom’s laundry out of the way to make a clearing in the hallway. “Sorry. I can’t go to the store and get more laundry soap till the mechanic’s done with our car.”
    “I would have brought you some. Damn, you’re stubborn.”
    She’s turns to me with a half grin, “I know, but you’ve already been giving me rides.” 
    It’s been a few days since I’ve been here and things have quickly fallen apart. As we walk past the master bedroom I see Mary buried in blankets breathing heavy. Amy whispers to me as we head toward her room. “Oh thank God, she finally went