The Speed of Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

into a panic. I don’t tell Dr. Fornum about Marjory because she would ask questions I don’t want to answer.
    So that makes two big secrets, swords and Marjory.
    When I’ve eaten, I drive over to my fencing class, at Tom and Lucia’s. Marjory will be there. I want to close my eyes, thinking of Marjory, but I am driving and it is not safe. I think of music instead, of the chorale of Bach’s Cantata no. 39 .
    Tom and Lucia have a large house with a big fenced backyard. They have no children, even though they are older than I am. At first I thought this was because Lucia liked working with clients so much that she did not want to stay home with children, but I heard her tell someone else that she and Tom could not have children. They have many friends, and eight or nine usually show up for fencing practice. I don’t know if Lucia has told anyone at the hospital that she fences or that she sometimes invites clients to come learn fencing. I think the hospital would not approve. I am not the only person under psychiatric supervision who comes to Tom and Lucia’s to learn to fight with swords. I asked her once, and she just laughed and said, “What they don’t know won’t scare them.”
    I have been fencing here for five years. I helped Tom put down the new surface on the fencing area, stuff that’s usually used for tennis courts. I helped Tom build the rack in the back room where we store our blades. I do not want to have my blades in my car or in myapartment, because I know that it would scare some people. Tom warned me about it. It is important not to scare people. So I leave all my fencing gear Page 16

    at Tom and Lucia’s, and everyone knows that the left-hand-but-two slot is mine and so is the left-hand-but-two peg on the other wall and my mask has its own pigeonhole in the mask storage.
    First I do my stretches. I am careful to do all the stretches; Lucia says I am an example to the others.
    Don, for instance, rarely does all his stretches, and he is always putting his back out or pulling a muscle.
    Then he sits on the side and complains. I am not as good as he is, but I do not get hurt because I neglect the rules. I wish he would follow the rules because I am sad when a friend gets hurt.
    When I have stretched my arms, my shoulders, my back, my legs, my feet, I go to the back room and put on my leather jacket with the sleeves cut off at the elbow and my steel gorget . The weight of the gorget around my neck feels good. I take down my mask, with my gloves folded inside, and put the gloves in my pocket for now. My épée and rapier are in the rack; I tuck the mask under one arm and take them out carefully.
    Don comes in, rushed and sweating as usual, his face red. “Hi, Lou,” he says. I say hi and step back so he can get his blade from the rack. He is normal and could carry his épée in his car if he wanted without scaring people, but he forgets things. Hewas always having to borrow someone else’s, and finally Tom told him to leave his own here.
    I go outside. Marjory isn’t here yet. Cindy and Lucia are lining up with epees; Max is putting on his steel helmet. I don’t think I would like the steel helmet; it would be too loud when someone hit it. Max laughed when I told him that and said I could always wear earplugs, but I hate earplugs. They make me feel as if I have a bad cold. It’s strange, because I actually like wearing a blindfold. I used to wear one a lot when I was younger, pretending I was blind. I could understand voices a little better that way. But feeling my ears stuffed up doesn’t help me seebetter .
    Don swaggers out, épée tucked under his arm, buttoning his fancy leather doublet.Sometimes I wish I had one like that, but I think I do better with plain things.
    “Did you stretch?” Lucia asks him.
    He shrugs. “Enough.”
    She shrugs back. “Your pain,” she says. She and Cindy start fencing. I like to watch them and try to figure out what they’re doing. It’s all so fast I