Free Silence by Michelle Sagara Page A

when it was released.
    “Why were you at the graveyard?” she finaly asked.
    “I can see the dead,” he replied. “And oddly enough, there are very few dead in the graveyards of the world. It’s not where they lived,” he added, “and it’s not where they died. They’re not al that concerned about their corpses. I like graveyards because they’re quiet.”
    “But—but you were with someone.”
    “Yes. Not intentionaly,” he added, “but yes. I expected some difficulty. I did not expect you.” He picked up his coffee again.
    Set it down. Picked it up.
    “Eric, it’s not a yo-yo.”
    And he actualy smiled, although it never reached his eyes.
    “What did you expect?”
    “Trouble,” he finaly said. “Not Emma Hal and her dog.
    Which she cals Petal for some reason, even though he’s a rottweiler.”
    She winced. “My dad caled me Sprout. Petal was a puppy when my father brought him home, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Because of his ears. And my nickname.” She looked at Eric and said, “You were expecting me.”
    “Emma—”
    “You didn’t know who, but you had some idea of what.”
    He shrugged.
    “Why did you phone my mother? Why did you help me home? Eric, what were you planning to do in the graveyard?”
    He continued to say nothing. But at length, he replied. “I watched you, in school. Al of you. Amy, with her ridiculous entourage, her obvious money.”
    “And her fabulous body?”
    “That too. But not just Amy. Philipa. Deb. Nan. Alison.
    Connel and Oliver. Michael. You al have your problems, your little fights—but you also have your generous moments, your responsibilities. This may come as a surprise to you, but your thoughtless kindnesses made being in a new school a lot more pleasant.”
    “Thoughtless kindness?”
    “Pretty much. You do it without thinking. There’s not a lot of calculation, and I can’t see how most of it directly benefits any of you.” He paused again and then added, “I did not expect to see any one of you in that graveyard. Even when I saw you, I didn’t expect what happened.”
    “If it hadn’t been me, or any of us, what would you have done?”
    He looked at her for a moment and then shook his head, and something about his expression was painful to look at: not frightening, not threatening, but almost heartbreaking.
    “What I should have done, I didn’t do. What I should be doing, I haven’t done. Instead, I’m sitting here in a cafe in the doing, I haven’t done. Instead, I’m sitting here in a cafe in the middle of a school day drinking coffee that isn’t very good with a confused, teenage girl.”
    “Teenage girl?”
    “And talking too damn much,” he added. He drained the coffee cup.
    “Eric, you’re not exactly ancient, yourself.”
    He laughed. It was not a good laugh. “Come on,” he said, as if the bitterness of the dregs of the coffee had transferred itself to his voice. “You shouldn’t have touched your father.” He grimaced. “Emma, understand that what I know about—about what you can do was learned only so that I could prevent most of it. I can’t tel you what you can do; I don’t want you to know.
    I want you to turn your back on it and walk away.”
    “So you won’t have to kil me.”
    “I told you you heard me.”
    She managed to shrug.
    “I don’t want to draw your mother into this; I don’t want to draw your friends into it, either. Usualy that’s not much of a problem; most of the people who are affected by this are loners.”
    “Like you?”
    “Like me. You’re not. You’re tied to your life, and you take it seriously.” He looked out the window again. “I shouldn’t be talking to you, and you shouldn’t be skipping school. Let me pay for this, and I’l drive you back.”
    “Are you coming to Amy’s party tonight?”
    He looked at her as if she were almost insane, and she had to He looked at her as if she were almost insane, and she had to admit that as a non sequitur, it was