Wizard and glass - Stephen King [132]
“Hush!” Susan said in a low, fierce voice that made Sheemie’s smile fade. “Not a word about your three friends.”
A funny little flush, almost like a pocket fever, raced across her skin—it seemed to run down her neck from her cheeks, then slip all the way to her feet. There had been a lot of talk in Hambry about Sheemie’s new friends during the past week—talk about little else, it seemed. The stories she had heard were outlandish, but if they weren’t true, why did the versions told by so many different witnesses sound so much alike?
Susan was still trying to get herself back under control when Aunt Cord swept around the corner. Sheemie fell back a step at the sight of her, puzzlement becoming outright dismay. Her aunt was allergic to beestings, and was presently swaddled from the top of her straw ’brera to the hem of her faded garden dress in gauzy stuff that made her look peculiar in strong light and downright eerie in shade. Adding a final touch to her costume, she carried a pair of dirt-streaked garden shears in one gloved hand.
She saw the bouquet and bore down on it, shears raised. When she reached her niece, she slid the scissors into a loop on her belt (almost reluctantly, it seemed to the niece herself) and parted the veil on her face. “Who sent ye those?”
“I don’t know, Aunt,” Susan said, much more calmly than she felt. “This is the young man from the inn—”
“Inn!” Aunt Cord snorted.
“He doesn’t seem to know who sent him,” Susan carried on. If only she could get him out of here! “He’s, well, I suppose you’d say he’s—”
“He’s a fool, yes, I know that.” Aunt Cord cast Susan a brief, irritated look, then bent her attention on Sheemie. Talking with her gloved hands upon her knees, shouting directly into his face, she asked: “WHO . . . SENT . . . THESE . . . FLOWERS . . . YOUNG . . . MAN?”
The wings of her face-veil, which had been pushed aside, now fell back into place. Sheemie took another step backward. He looked frightened.
“WAS IT . . . PERHAPS . . . SOMEONE FROM . . . SEAFRONT? . . . FROM . . . MAYOR . . . THORIN? . . . TELL . . . ME . . . AND . . . I’LL . . . GIVE . . . YOU . . . A PENNY.”
Susan’s heart sank, sure he would tell—he’d not have the wit to understand he’d be getting her into trouble. Will, too, likely.
But Sheemie only shook his head. “Don’t ’member. I got a empty head, sai, so I do. Stanley says I a bugwit.”
His grin shone out again, a splendid thing full of white, even teeth. Aunt Cord answered it with a grimace. “Oh, foo! Be gone, then. Straight back to town, too—don’t be hanging around hoping for a goose-feather. For a boy who can’t remember deserves not so much as a penny! And don’t you come back here again, no matter who wants you to carry flowers for the young sai. Do you hear me?”
Sheemie had nodded energetically. Then: “Sai?”
Aunt Cord glowered at him. The vertical line on her forehead had been very prominent that day.
“Why you all wropped up in cobwebbies, sai?”
“Get out of here, ye impudent cull!” Aunt Cord cried. She had a good loud voice when she wanted to use it, and Sheemie jumped back from her in alarm. When she was sure he was headed back down the High Street toward town and had no intention of returning to their gate and hanging about in hopes of a tip, Aunt Cord had turned to Susan.
“Get those in some water before they wilt, Miss Oh So Young and Pretty, and don’t go mooning about, wondering who yer secret admirer might be.”
Then Aunt Cord had smiled. A real smile. What hurt Susan the most, confused her the most, was that her aunt was no cradle-story ogre, no witch like Rhea of the Cöos. There was no monster here, only a maiden lady with some few social pretensions, a love of gold and silver, and a fear of being turned out, penniless, into the world.
“For folks such as us, Susie-pie,” she said, speaking with a terrible heavy kindness, “