The Peculiar Night of the Blue Heart Read Online Free Page B

Mrs. Mannerd saw only sorrow.
    â€œThere now, it’s all right,” she told him. “Have you eaten? There’s some extra bread and butter in the kitchen.”
    She held out her hand, and for once he took it. It was rare that he let her stand this close, much less reached out to touch her. In her pity, and in his fear, for once they had some common ground.

    Marybeth had always been a child who blended into the wallpaper and the wood grain, but without her red spectacles, she became even more invisible. The older ones shoved past her on their way downstairs to the breakfast table, jostling her about. Marybeth didn’t seem to mind this either. She walked with an eerie poise, as though she were carrying something breakable on her head.
    Lionel was at the table early for once. He hadn’t overslept; he had been awake all night. He rarely worried, but when he did, it made him nocturnal like the coyotes and spiders.
    He sat at a chair so that he could keep an eye on Marybeth, and he didn’t acknowledge Mrs. Mannerd’s words of encouragement and praise as she spooned oatmeal into his bowl.
    Marybeth had not bothered with her braids this morning, and Lionel could see how long her hair truly was. It disappeared under the table, straight and smooth like the ribbons that hung on spools in the tailor shop window.
    She stared down at her bowl and drew patterns in the oatmeal, her mouth pensively puckered off to one side.
    â€œToo slow!” one of the older ones, a boy, shouted as he reached across the table for her toast and jam.
    He was a boy that Lionel had long ago decided was a hyena, and when he had told Marybeth she had agreed. He had large ears, small eyes, and hunched shoulders.
    As the hyena boy bit into the toast and let out a taunting “Mmmmm,” he did not see the sudden, vicious glare in Marybeth’s eyes. He did not hear her low growl.
    In an instant, Marybeth had scrambled over the table, knocking over glasses of milk and scattering the bowls, and she bit the hyena boy in the neck.
    He let out a cry, but Marybeth had latched onto him. She kept her teeth in his skin even as he pulled at her hair and fell backward onto the floor with a crash. By the time Mrs. Mannerd grabbed the collar of Marybeth’s dressand pulled her away, the hyena boy was in tears. Blood was trailing from his neck. “She bit me! The little brat bit me!”
    Startled, Marybeth looked around the dining room. All the children were staring at her now. The hyena boy’s blood stained her lips, and she was breathing hard.
    â€œMarybeth,” Mrs. Mannerd gasped, but before she could get a good look at Marybeth, she was gone. She ran from the dining room, through the kitchen, and outside, forgetting her shoes and coat; the storm door slammed shut behind her.
    Lionel had been the only one looking at her the moment before she lunged, and he was the only one who saw the flash of blue in her irises.
    He ran after her. Mrs. Mannerd threw her hands up in exasperation, muttering that those two would be the death of her one of these days.
    Lionel was not going to let Marybeth disappear this time. He kept his sight on her maroon dress and its white sailor collar that fluttered behind her. He caught up to her when she at last stopped at the river’s edge.
    She sat on the big rock, hugged her knees to her chest, and buried her face in them.
    Lionel approached cautiously. He crawled with his belly low to the rock, and then he sat across from her. He didn’t speak, only watched her with his head canted.
    â€œI didn’t mean it,” she finally said, her voice muffled. “I didn’t want to bite him.”
    â€œIt’s okay that you did,” Lionel said. He could hear the distress in her voice, and it caused him a great deal of pain. “He took your toast. Eagles will fight to the death over something like that.”
    â€œI’m not an eagle, Lionel. I’m a girl.” She