Free The Elementals by Saundra Mitchell Page A

dropping from newly animated flesh branded him.
    He prayed in formless desperation. All that mattered was ending this. He wanted it to stop, the bird, his own body, everything. Anything. The sparrow opened its beak and screamed. It was a high, ragged note, full of agony. Then the poor beast collapsed in silence.
    “Thank you,” Julian rasped. He almost sobbed when the violent grip on his body finally relaxed. Trembling, cold, he closed his eyes and basked in the dark, in taking a breath untainted by death.
    Footsteps approached, and Henry leaned over, blocking out the sun. “What are you doing down there?”
    Pushing up on his elbows, Julian shook his head a little too hard. Pain swirled through it, and his stomach turned in unison. “Nothing.”
    “Well, get up. Mama’s going to have a conniption if she finds out you’re playing with dead birds again.”
    “Again?” Julian asked.
    But Henry hauled him to his feet and was gone before he got an answer. Still unsettled, Julian didn’t follow. Instead, he pushed the sparrow’s body into the bushes. After all that, it deserved to sink back into the earth in peace.
    Julian went to wash up with the brown lye soap Mama kept in the laundry—when he was done, he decided, he’d find out what else they’d been keeping from him.
     
    “Couldn’t you leave him?” Mollie asked. She swept her hair behind her ear, offering her most winsome smile.
    Sitting on the foot of Kate’s bed, she’d already changed into her costume and dusted her skin with cornstarch to lighten it. A touch of rouge stained her lips; crushed charcoal darkened the lashes beneath her eyes. She was both beautiful and frightening, and she couldn’t wait to get into the planter that would pose as a boat.
    The smile, however, was lost on Kate. She hid beneath her quilt, changing the film in her camera. It wasn’t particularly delicate work, but Handsome stood on her back while she did it, making the task more difficult. Mollie would shriek if he flapped his wings, and he would certainly flap his wings if Kate disturbed his balance, so like a surgeon, she made small, precise motions to balance everything.
    “I think it should be romantic if we had a raven to circle your grave,” Kate said.
    Mollie narrowed her eyes at the bird. As far as she was concerned, he was a great, awful monster. She didn’t care much for the fact that he fascinated Kate nearly as much as she did. Making a face, Mollie spoke, her voice far sweeter than her expression.
    “It is
very
romantic,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But he makes me nervous. I know it makes me a frightfully silly thing, but I won’t be able to give my best performance. You said that film was dear.”
    Beneath the cover, Kate yelped when she closed her finger in the camera case. “It is, that’s true . . .”
    Slipping to her feet, Mollie backed toward the door. Any moment, Kate would stand up and that nasty bird would go wild. It was worse than a rat; rats had the sense to run away from human beings. “And I do so much want to impress Mr. Griffith with a perfect reel.”
    “Wouldn’t that be something?” Kate’s smile was evident in her voice, and she rose like a ghost. Uncovering one arm, she bobbed her shoulder to make Handsome work his way down. “He’d stare. Openly. In wonder! And I’d say, ‘D.W., you’re drawing flies, dear man. You must tell me exactly what you think.’”
    Warming up to this fantasy, Mollie leaned her head against the door. “And he’d say, ‘It’s marvelous. It’s wonderful. We’ll want this for Triangle, straightaway.’”
    “And I’ll pretend to think about it. ‘Oh, my, D.W., I don’t know. Mabel Normand is doing such visionary work at Keystone right now . . . ’”
    “Don’t be absurd,” Mollie-as-D.W. roared.
    Then she cried out, because Handsome spread his wings wide and roared back, “Nevermore!”
    “Stop it,” Kate said, shushing him as she shed the cover. “You’re making my