Stranger Things Happen

No, June thought. I'm the sort that steals them. She delved into her sack. "This is for my mother," she said. "Would you sign it for her?"

"How lovely," Rose Read said. She signed the book with a fountain pen proffered by the man behind the counter, in a child's careful looped cursive. "There. Have you got a lover, my dear?"

"That's none of your business," June said, grabbing the book back.

"Is it my business, Mr. Kew?" Rose Read said to the shopkeeper. He snickered. She had said his name the way two spies meeting at a party might use made-up names.

"She doesn't have a lover," he said. "I'd smell him on her if she did."

June took a step back, then another, hesitating. The man and woman stared at her blandly. She found the store and the pair of them u

5. Going to hell. Instructions and advice.

It is late morning when you arrive at Bonehouse, but the sky is dark. As you walk, you must push aside the air, like heavy cloth. Your foot stumbles on the mute ground.

You are in a flat place where the sky presses down, and the buildings creep close along the streets, and all the doors stand open. Grass grows on the roofs of the houses; the roofs are packed sod, and the grass raises up tall like hair on a scalp. Follow the others. They are dead and know the way better than you. Speak to no one.

At last you will arrive at a door in an alley, with a dog asleep on the threshold. He has many heads and each head has many teeth, and his teeth are sharp and eager as knives.

6. What was in the bottle.

June sat happy and quiet in the grassy bowl of the castle. Students in their red gowns and tourists in various plaids clambered over the worn and tumbled steps that went over the drawbridge between the squat towers. Outside the castle wall, there were more steps winding down to the rocky beach. She could hear people complaining loudly as they came back up, the wind pushing them backwards. Inside the wall the air was still, the sky arched like a glass lid, shot through with light.

Ravens sleek and round as kettles patrolled the grass. They lifted in lazy circles when the tourists came too close, settling down near June, hissing and croaking. She took the perfume out of her knapsack and turned it in her hands. The bottle was tall and slim and plainly made. The stopper was carved out of a rosy stone and where it plunged into the mouth of the decanter the glass was faceted like the rhinestones on Rose Read's compact. June took out the stopper.

She touched it to her wrist, then held her wrist up to her nose and sniffed. It smelled sweet and greeny-ripe as an apple. It made her head spin. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there was someone watching her.

Up in the tilted crown of the lefthand tower, Mr. Kew, Prop. was looking straight down at her. He smiled and winked one eye shut. He cocked his index finger, sighted, and squeezed his fist closed. Pow, he said silently, pulling his lips tight in exaggeration around the word. Then he turned to make his way down the stairs.

June jumped up. If she went out over the drawbridge they would meet at the foot of the stairs. She grabbed up her pack and went in the opposite direction. She stopped at the wall and looked over. A cement bulwark, about five feet below, girdled up the cliffs that the castle sat on; she tossed the pack over and followed it, heels first, holding hard to the crumbling wall.

7. She hears a story about birds.

Down on June's right was the beach, invisible past the curve of the castle's bulk, cliffs and marshy land to her left. Waves slapped against the concrete barriers below her. She sat on the ledge, wondering how long she would have to wait before climbing back up to the castle or down to the beach. The wind cut straight through her jersey.

She turned her head, and saw there was a man standing next to her. Her heart slammed into her chest before she saw that it was a boy her own age, seventeen or eighteen, with a white face and blue eyes. His eyebrows met, knitted together above the bridge of his nose.

"Before you climbed down," he said, "did you happen to notice if there were a lot of birds up there?"

"You mean girls?" June said, sneering at him. His eyes were very blue.

"No, birds. You know, with wings." He flapped his arms.

"Ravens," June said. "And maybe some smaller ones, like sparrows."

He sat down beside her, folding his arms around his knees. "Damn," he said. "I thought maybe if I waited for a while, they might get bored and leave. They have a very short attention span."

"You're hiding from birds?"

"I have a phobia," he said, and turned bright red. "Like claustrophobia, you know."

"That's unfortunate," June said. "I mean, birds are everywhere."

"It's not all birds," he said. "Or it's not all the time. Sometimes they bother me, sometimes they don't. They look at me fu

"I'm afraid of mice," June said. "Once when I was little I put my foot into a shoe and there was a dead mouse inside. I still shake out my shoes before I put them on."

"When I was five, my mother was killed by a flock of peacocks." he said, as if it had happened to someone else's mother, and he had read about it in a newspaper.

"What?" June said.

He sounded embarrassed. "Okay. Um, my mother took me to see the castle at Inverness. She said that my father was a king who lived in a castle. She was always making stories up like that. I don't remember the castle very well, but afterwards we went for a walk in the garden. There was a flock of peacocks and they were stalking us. They were so big – they seemed really big – as big as I was. My mother stuck me in a cherry tree and told me to yell for help as loudly as I could."

He took a deep breath. "The tailfeathers sounded like silk dresses brushing against the ground. I remember that. They sounded like women in long silk dresses. I didn't make a sound. If I made a sound, they might notice me. They crowded my mother up against the curb of a stone fountain, and she was pushing at them with her hands, shooing them, and then she just fell backwards. The fountain only had two inches of water in it. I heard her head crack against the bottom when she fell. It knocked her unconscious and she drowned before anyone came."

His face was serious and beseeching. She could see the small flutter of pulse against the white flesh – thin as paper – of his jaw.

"That's horrible," June said. "Who took care of you?"

"My mother and father weren't married," he said. "He already had a wife. My mother didn't have any family, so my father gave me to his sisters. Aunt Mi

"My father emigrated to Australia when I was two," June said. "I don't remember him much. My mother remarried about a year ago."

"I've never seen my father," the boy said. "Aunt Rose says it would be too dangerous. His wife, Vera, hates me even though she's never seen me, because I'm her husband's bastard. She's a little insane."

"What's your name?"

"Humphrey Bogart Stoneking," he said. "My mother was a big fan. What's your name?"

"June," said June.

They were silent for a moment. June rubbed her hands together for comfort. "Are you cold?" asked Humphrey. She nodded and he moved closer and put his arm around her.

"You smell nice," he said after a moment. He sniffed thoughtfully. "Familiar, sort of."

"Yeah?" She turned her head and their mouths bumped together, soft and cold.