SHADOW-TRUTHS LAST THE LONGEST
A bit more of my WIP, SAME AS IT NEVER WAS
BECAREFUL WHO YOU LOVE
"Thelessons one learns at St. Marok’s are not always the ones this school thinksit’s teaching."
– Richard Blaine
MissMayfair shook her head as if by doing so, she could shake loose the attackingthoughts stinging her mind.
“Enoughof that. I truly wonder if Miss Treadwell graduated from an accredited college at all,judging from the way she used, or should I say, misused the Dewey DecimalSystem. The books in this library are all terribly misplaced and sorted.”
Shelooked at me impishly. “You do know the Dewey Decimal System, do you not?”
Ireturned her look. “It’s one of the few systems I live by.”
“Well,then, you go to the far end of this library, and I shall start here by the deskrearranging the books properly. We will meet in the middle as do allintelligent people.”
Afteronly a few minutes, it was plain her plan would not work, and she muttered,“This is horrendous. Why did Stearns hire her if she knew so little aboutlibrary science?”
I did notthink he hired her for her brains, but I kept that to myself. It might lead herto thinking how he had tried to “sell” her to one of the houses ofprostitution around this orphanage for her body. Least said, least egg on myface, and one less foot in my mouth.
I smiledand said nothing. I caught my heart beating faster as I walked closer to her. Ifrowned. First love is dangerous only when it is also the last. Sadly, first love is only slightly less perishable than human life here in the French Quarter.
I was surprisedto see the thin, stiff-bound “On the Perceptual Content of Quantum Theoretical Kinematics and Mechanics” by Werner Heisenberg in my right hand. Though it hadbeen written in 1927, I still found it fascinating.
MissMayfair’s face went suddenly pale as she looked over my left shoulder. La merde.I turned around, expecting the worst and getting it. “Bent” Murcham.
Where the late unlamented DonnyJenkins liked to hurt people. “Bent” liked to kill them. He had proven more usefulto Stearns than Donny. So much so that the Headmaster had gotten rid of all hisvictims, not just the ones Stearns had pointed out to him.
"Bent" flashed a shark’s smile. “You never made it to your cot at the dorm last night,Dickie boy. And we had such a nice party planned for you and everything.”
His eyesgrew as cold and flat as wet stones on the beach. “Me and the boys liked Donny and Stearns.”
“No, youfeared them.”
His face grew as remote as a surgeon's face might just before he amputated a leg. "You should fear us."
"I do ... like I do coiled rattlers."
