Nightlight Read Online Free PDF

in its grip.”
    Paul paused in the garden, and watched the water of the fountain mingle with the rain as it sprinkled the cupid. The cherub looked to one side, with a grin. His cheeks were fat, and fatter with the effort of a grin that could be called lewd. The eyes of the boy angel had no pupils, but he seemed to be looking at someone only he could see, someone who provided the obscene joke that the angel enjoyed. His wings sprouted from his shoulders, and from the top of his spine sprang a rigid black tube. Water jetted from this black pipe and fell back on itself, with a sound very much unlike rain. A patter of water, but deliberate, artificial, the sound of someone pretending to laugh.
    â€œPaul.” Aunt Mary’s voice stopped him. She held on to the front door, and did not speak for a moment. “I don’t think there’s a phone at the cabin.”
    Paul waited, the chatter of the water the only sound.
    â€œI want you to call me within the next three days, whether you’ve found him or not.”
    Paul shrugged. “Sure. No problem.”
    He wanted to sound calm and responsible, but all he could think was: the dream.
    She has the dream.

6
    For some reason crazy people and derelicts tended to spend working hours on the steps into the building, and Paul, for some reason, always said good morning to them. He had even become familiar with a savage-looking man with huge yellow teeth who nodded not his head but his entire upper body in greeting and said, “How you doin’,” in response.
    Paul never knew whether or not this was a question that required an answer, but on this morning he responded, “Very well, thanks,” and the man shrank back into the shelter of the eaves, beside the newspaper vending machine chained to a pole.
    Paul shook himself out of his rain coat, but did not bother to hang it anywhere. “Gotta see the Ham,” he told the secretary he had never seen before.
    â€œYeah, Paul,” said Hamilton, mussing up his gray hair as a way of greeting.
    Paul stood still in the center of the room, meaning that he would take more than three seconds, and that he needed to sit somewhere.
    â€œMove some of that shit,” Hamilton said, waving a hand. A cigarette scribbled smoke into the air. “Berkeley High is having a field trip upstairs, and we all had to loan chairs.”
    Paul dropped three phone books to the floor, and set a clipboard of blank yellow paper carefully on top of them. He sat, and said quickly, as he had planned for hours, “I need some time off.”
    Ham put his feet up and scrunched his features with one hand. His face momentarily assumed new creases, then fell back into its usual folds. He blinked to focus his eyes, and leaned forward on his elbows. This was all a way of demanding an explanation.
    Paul kept his silence.
    Ham cleared his throat. “Time off.”
    People on the Gazette liked to quote small portions of previous statements as a way of negating them. It was a habit Paul found delightful, except when it was used against him. “Off,” Paul said.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œFamily emergency.”
    â€œOh, for Christ’s sake. What the hell’s a family emergency? And while you’re thinking, get up and shut the door, because I don’t want to embarrass you before the secretary.”
    â€œSecretary? You mean your latest hobby horse out there?” Paul shut the door, but slowly.
    â€œDo you have a review for us?”
    Paul pressed his heart, and paper crackled.
    â€œYou’ve been borderline late three weeks running.”
    â€œBorderline, though, right?”
    â€œDon’t give me any of your horseshit, Paul, because I’m tired, the paper is broke, and you are very lucky to have a job. It’s the easiest newspaper job in the state. You file nine little inches, twenty-three centimeters, a week, and clip out some recipes you steal from Family Circle every Saturday, and