Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [33]
The Weatherman’s voice was thin and high and singsong in a meandering sort of way that suggested his mind wasn’t fully focused on what he was doing. Hawk suspected the old man’s mind hadn’t been fully focused on anything for years. It was a miracle that he had survived this long on the streets, alone and unprotected. Almost no adults lived outside the compounds; only kids and Freaks lived on the streets.
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.
Sweet and kind and slow of mind, it really didn’t know.
That everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went. Everywhere that Mary went, bad things were sure to go.
“Which accounted for its untimely demise the day Mary decided to visit the waterfront and ran into the big, bad wolf. Hello, Brother Hawk.”
The Weatherman emerged from the shadow of a partially collapsed building along the dockside, his ravaged face like something out of a nightmare—the skin pocked and mottled, the strange blue eyes as mad as those of any Croak, and the wispy white hair sticking out in all directions. He wore his trademark black cloak and red scarf, both so tattered it was a wonder the threads still managed to hold together.
“Are you the wolf that Mary should have stayed away from?” Hawk asked him.
You never knew for sure what the Weatherman was singing about.
The old man hobbled over to him, giving Cheney a passing glance but showing no fear. Cheney, for his part, kept his yellow eyes fixed on the scarecrow but did not growl. “Hadn’t given it much thought. Do you think I might be?”
Hawk shrugged. “I think you’re the Weatherman. But you could be a wolf, too.”
The old man came right up to him. He reeked of the streets, of the waterfront smells, of the poisons and the waste. His eyes were milky and his fingers bony as he lifted them to his scraggly beard and tugged on it contemplatively.
“I could be many things, Brother Hawk. But I am only one. I am the Weatherman, and my forecast for you this day is of dark clouds and cold nights and of a heavy wind that threatens to blow you away.” The mad eyes fixed on him.
“My prediction calls for a Ghost watch. Keep a weather eye out, boy, until I have a chance to provide an update.”
Hawk nodded, not understanding at all. He never understood the Weatherman’s predictions, but out of politeness he pretended he did. “We came across a Lizard yesterday. It was all torn up. You know something out there that could do that, Weatherman?”
The ragged head cocked and the gaunt face tightened. “Something searching for food or establishing its territory. Something like The times we live in—who would have believed they would come to pass? Do you know, Brother Hawk, that this city was beautiful once? It was green and sparkling, and the waters of this bay were so blue and the sky so clear you could see forever. Everything was lovely and new and filled with color and it could hurt your eyes just to look at it.”
He smiled, the gaps in his teeth showing black and empty. “I was a boy like you, long ago. I lived over there, beyond the mist.” He pointed west, glanced that way as if he might see something of his past, and then looked back at Hawk, his face stricken. “What we’ve done! What we’ve allowed! We deserve what’s happened to us. We deserve it all.”
“Speak for yourself,” Hawk said. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this.
The Ghosts didn’t do anything. Grown-ups did. Tell me what you know about the Lizard.”
But the Weatherman wasn’t ready to move on yet. “Not all grown-ups are bad, Hawk. Never were. Not all are responsible for what happened to the world.
Some few were enough to cause the destruction—some few with power and means. It was different then. Do you know that people could speak with each other and see each other at the same time through little black boxes, even though they were thousands of miles away? Did you know they could project images of themselves in the same way?”
Hawk shook his head. “Owl reads to us about that stuff, but what’s the difference? That’s all gone now, all in the past.