The Dead Have No Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page A

believe in God.  Why not?”
    Mickey thought his answer through before replying, “When I was at school we were taught that God is good.  If that’s true then I’m fucked if I know what good is.  No God that was good and loved his people would have allowed my Mum to suffer the way she did.”
    “You don’t think there was a purpose behind it?” said Pester.  He threw another stick on the fire and watched Mickey’s expression by the growing firelight.
    “Mum always used to tell me that everything happens for a reason,” Mickey replied.  “I can’t see any reason for what she had to put up with though.”
    “Was your Ma a religious person?”  Pester poked at the fire to spread the embersaround.  The fire grabbed greedily at fresh twigs and branches, the flames leaping in joy at the treat.
    Mickey enjoyed the increased warmth from the fire and the opportunity to talk about his Mum, even though it hurt him.
    “Yeah,” he replied.  “She was very religious.  Mum would go to Church as often as she could.  He didn’t like her going though.  Sometimes he’d stop her from going.  She told me that she prayed for me every time she went.  When he left us she went to Church whenever she wanted to.”
    Pester wondered if he could see moistness in Mickey’s eyes.  Maybe so or maybe it was just a trick of the light.
    Mickey’s voice seemed thicker when he spoke again.
    “Mum said that she needed to pray for me a lot.  She said that I was a good boy but my soul needed all the help she could give it.  I just laughed at her and told her that I could look after myself.  I believed that there was nothing after we were dead, so my soul was ok.”  He looked around him into the impenetrable darkness.  “I guess I was wrong about that.”
    You were wrong on quite a few counts, thought Pester.  He thought about enlightening the young traveller about a few of these.  It was late though and Pester wanted them to cover as many miles as possible the following day.  Putting Mickey straight could wait for another time.  He should have enough opportunities to fill Mickey in with all the things that he needed to know.
    Pester watched Mickey for a while.  The young man seemed to be lost in thought.  He also looked exhausted.  No more talk tonight then.  Let the boy sleep.  Tomorrow was likely to be long and testing.  Pester was encouraged by how well Mickey had handled the events of the day so far.  He’d seen far worse from people in the past.  There was always the possibility that Mickey might have a delayed reaction.  Pester was sure that there would be some kind ofoutburst.  There nearly always was.  He preferred the histrionics to happen and be over with early on.  It was out of the way and dealt with then.  He found it was always more difficult if someone lost their heads a few days into the journey.  The further they’d gone the worst the consequences were if the traveller fell off the rails.  It usually happened when one of the inevitable obstacles presented itself.
    People always found it tough to cope when they made an association between the fact that they had left the mortal realm but still had trials to face in this one before their final journey could be completed.
    Sometimes Pester was able to help the traveller to calm down and find a way forward.  For those that he couldn’t well, he never really knew what happened to them after that.  Pester suspected that the difficulties just multiplied for people after they left him.  He’d lostquite a few this way.  None of them would have completed their journeys.  It was possible that some were still wandering around in the wastelands beyond this valley.  It was more likely that they would have become prey to some of the beasts that prowled around the starting points. 
    For others though, their journeys would end when the realisation of the magnitude of what lay before them became too much to bear.  For these the end would come when