Tree Fingers Read Online Free PDF

agree. There’s something about it I don’t care for anymore. We’ll burn it with the leaves.”
    The remains of the walnut jutted over the fence, diminished but intact. Looking in its direction, Graham said “Sad. It’ll never be what it was.”
    “Things change,” Alan said. “They survive. Adjust. Maybe it’ll be better. It looks kind of cool, like a pitchfork or something.”
    “Mr. Cook won’t have the opportunity to survive or adjust,”
    Graham said, turning his head toward the small house, its roof covered in brown leaves. The crowd of people had begun to disperse.
    “Death is a transition from one state to another,” Alan said.
    “Not an end.”
    “That’s how you’ll justify it?” Graham asked, knitting his brows together. “How could you?”
    “What?” Alan asked, worried now. Graham so rarely got upset with him, but he recognized it when he saw it.
    “Show me your left hand.”
    Taking it guiltily from his pocket, Alan considered concocting a story about a late-night sandwich mishap. Graham would believe him; Graham would want to believe him. But a lasting relationship couldn’t be built on a foundation of lies, so he unfurled his fingers in silence.
    Graham took Alan’s hand and turned it palm up, staring at the gash. “I don’t even know what to say to you. A man’s dead, Alan.”
    “An old man is dead from a heart attack,” Alan said.
    “That’s what you truly believe, then?”
    Feeling sick, filled with dread as he watched Graham staring at his empty hand like it held a murder weapon, Alan couldn’t answer. Instead he said, “All I wanted was to protect you. Graham, please.”
    “You think I’d want this?” Graham’s voice rose as he flung Alan’s hand away to point toward the Cook property. “How could you have so little regard for another human being? And how can you expect me to accept it? You know how I feel about that garbage you read. How can I accept that you actually put it into practice?”
    “You accept it because it’s a part of me.”
    “I don’t know if I can do that, Alan. I don’t know if I can keep turning a blind eye.”
    Grasping Graham’s upper arms, holding tight and looking deep into his light eyes, Alan said desperately, “I don’t want to lose you. Please don’t give up on me. On us. I never should have cast that spell. I didn’t even think it would work. I only wanted to protect the tree, keep it safe for you. I didn’t think there’d be any danger. I still don’t know if I caused any of this.”
    “But you tried.”
    “Graham, you claim not to believe in any of this. You can’t just believe when it’s convenient. All I actually did was burn some incense and say some words. Why does that upset you so much?”
    “ You claim you saw nothing wrong with what you did,”
    Graham said, breaking away and turning toward the house, his back to Alan, “and yet you had to wait until I fell asleep and sneak out of the bed to do it?”
    “Only because I know how you feel about magic! I don’t understand why you hate it so much. It’s totally unreasonable!”
    Graham’s shoulders curled forward and he looked down at his toe, which he used to kick a fallen walnut. Tentatively Alan placed his hand on Graham’s back. When the other man didn’t recoil, he rubbed up and down the length of Graham’s spine.
    Graham pressed back against Alan’s touch and said softly,
    “Maybe it is. I just don’t understand it, and it scares me. I’m scared something will happen to you. I can’t go through that again.”
    “Oh, Graham,” Alan said, a little ashamed that he hadn’t seen or sensed his partner’s distress or its cause.
    “I don’t suppose you’d give it up.”
    Alan remained silent, considering. He loved Graham so much, couldn’t imagine his future without him. At the same time, though, he loved and craved knowledge. He’d always had a reckless need to peel away the layers of gauze and behold the naked truth. He doubted he’d ever be