LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      There was something different about the afternoon. It seemed dark although there wasn’t much cloud. It seemed cold although the sun shone. And the alder trees along the river stirred and shivered although the wind did not seem to blow. Owen came over the three fields and crossed the river just below the Workhouse on an old beech tree that had fallen several years before, climbing from branch to branch with his eyes almost closed, trying not to look down, even though he knew the river was narrow and sluggish at that point, and that there were many trailing branches to cling on to if he fell. Only when he reached the other side did he dare to look down, and even then the black, unreflecting surface seemed to be beckoning to him so that he turned away with a shudder.

      He had woken early that morning. It was Saturday and he had tried to get back to sleep, but that hadn’t worked so he had got up and got dressed. Before his mother could wake, Owen had slipped out of the house and down to Mary White’s shop. Mary had run the shop for many years. It was small and packed with goods and very cosy, with good cooking smells coming from the kitchen behind. Mary, who was a shrewd but kindly woman, smiled at Owen when he came in. Before he had even asked, she handed him a packet of bacon, milk and half a dozen eggs. He had no money, but then he never had. Mary used to write down what he got in a little book, but now she didn’t even bother with that. As always, she could see his embarrassment.

      “Stop looking so worried,” she said. “You’ll pay it back some day. Besides, you have to be fed, for all our sakes.”

      She often said mysterious things like that, telling him that it was a pleasure and a privilege to look after him. Owen didn’t know what she meant, for no one else seemed to think that way. Sometimes, when he walked through the little town at the bottom of the hill, you would think he had a bad smell the way people shied away from him and whispered behind their hands. It was the same in school. Sometimes, it seemed the only reason that anybody ever talked to him was in order to start a fight. He knew that he had no father, and that his clothes were older and more worn than the other boys and girls at the school, but something seemed to run deeper than that.

      “It’s not that they don’t like you,” Mary said, in her curious way. “They see something in you that both frightens them and attracts them as well. People don’t like things that they don’t understand.”

      When Owen got back to the house, he cooked the bacon and eggs and took them up to his mother. She woke and smiled sleepily at him, as if awakened from a pleasant dream, then looked around her and frowned, as if bad old memories had come flooding back. He handed her the tray and she took it without thanking him, a vague, worried look on her face. She was like that most of the time now.

      Then there was the photograph. It had been taken shortly after Owen had been born. His father was holding him in the crook of one arm, his other arm around Owen’s mother. He was dark-haired and strong and smiling. His mother was smiling as well. Even the baby was smiling. The sun shone on their faces and all was well with the world. After his father’s death, Owen’s mother had taken to carrying the photograph everywhere, looking at it so often that the edges had become frayed. As a reminder of happier times, he supposed. Then one day he noticed that she hadn’t looked at it. “Where is it?” he had asked gently. “Where is the photograph?”

      She looked up at him. “I lost it,”

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