Free The Mask That Sang by Susan Currie Page B

them exactly, but she had felt their presence.
    Cass shivered involuntarily, as if that fog was trying to get inside her.
    â€œWe have to follow the curve of the snake,” she said slowly. “I think…it’s going to lead us into a place that isn’t very happy.”
    Degan nodded, not questioning for a moment. “Okay.”
    They walked slowly alongside the fence that separated them from the railway tracks. It curved around, through an area with big cement buildings where the wind whistled, almost like a canyon in the city. They passed a factory with a smokestack. Soon there was nothing but industrial buildings. Still the tracks went on. They curved again, and went down a small slope.
    A few scattered houses emerged, small and narrow, with peeling paint. They felt lonely and neglected, Cass thought. More houses appeared, finally becoming a neighborhood. But unlike Cass’s own area of town, where her tough little house was the only one that was not enormous, this whole area was clearly not so well-off. Some of the houses practically backed right up onto the tracks, some of their backyards a jumble of abandoned and rusting things. They were small, narrow, with bending fences and laundry blowing on clotheslines. There were trailers parked on grass. Garbage was strewn in the streets.
    â€œThis is it,” Cass said softly. “This is the place in the fog. It’s the unhappy place.”
    Degan let out his breath slowly, as if he was going to say something. But then he didn’t. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked beside her without speaking. She looked sideways at him, sensing the change in his mood. She couldn’t see his face because he was looking down at the ground, his hair hanging forward.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œI live here,” Degan said.

chapter fourteen
    â€œOh!” Cass sucked in air so abruptly that her breath made a noise.
    Suddenly she remembered Ellis laughing at where Degan’s home was. Hadn’t he said something about criminals being there?
    â€œYou’re right, I guess. It’s not a very happy place,” he said at last. “As a place , that is. There are some good people here, though. Like my aunt.”
    â€œAnd you,” Cass said quickly.
    She didn’t know what to say after that. So they walked silently past the shabby houses, past kids playing on the sidewalks. They were laughing, running around. Kids could make fun anywhere.
    Degan said quietly, “My aunt lives here because she says this is where our people need help the most. This is where we’ve become sick, some of us. Forgetting our roots, lost in the city. So she does healing.” After a minute, he added, “She helped my mom, before she died. And she helped me too, when I was a baby. She helped hide me so I wouldn’t get taken and put into the foster system.”
    â€œMy mom was in the foster system,” Cass said softly.
    Degan glanced at her. He nodded.
    They reached some streets with stores on them. Along the narrow streets here, a few people stood around together in doorways or on the sidewalk curbs. They didn’t exactly seem to be waiting, but they also didn’t seem to have anything to do. Some talked and laughed.
    â€œDegan!”
    It was a young man, smoking. He waved. “You learn lots of stuff today?”
    Degan nodded and waved back.
    â€œYou going to become a professor maybe?”
    â€œMaybe,” Degan said.
    The young man laughed, not unkindly, and other people laughed too.
    It made Cass feel suddenly heavy inside, as if she was absorbing the atmosphere around her. There was an air of boredom all around, but also, maybe, something else. Something that hung over everyone and whispered about how there was no point in trying to do anything. Nothing would come to anything. Like life itself was a bully, and it was hard to get the energy to keep trying to fight back.
    One of the men called to Cass,