Free Vengeance by Colin Harvey Page B

down across the street, swinging his arms backwards and forwards as he paced. Occasionally he would shout incoherently. The shopkeeper added, as if it explained everything: “He seems to eat so little."
    "They should arrest him,” her customer said forcefully. “He frightens the children. Me as well."
    "The Watch have moved him out of town goodness knows how many times.” The shopkeeper took the money for her customer's purchases, bundling them up. “He always seems to come back sooner or later.” She peered. “Oh, what's he doing now?"
    "Dis-gust-ing,” the customer said. “He's eating a worm!"
    "Clear off!” The shopkeeper waved her beefy arms at Meph, and he retreated slowly, sucking a worm as if it were a strand of spaghetti, gazing up at the sky with great green fluorescent eyes.
* * * *
    O'Malley scrubbed his face with his hand. He'd gone thirty-six hours without rest, driving himself to complete the arrangements before he'd collapsed with fatigue. He'd fallen asleep only a few hours before, and he felt as if he hadn't slept at all.
    He staggered to answer the hammering at the door that had woken him and wrenched it open, ready to give the caller a mouthful of abuse, but stopped when he saw it was Gabriel. He could see what turmoil the boy was in. He could see by Gabriel's look that though he'd lost a daughter, they were both suffering as much as the other. O'Malley had seen the same look before in those with damaged minds and knew full-blown insanity was only one incident away. “Come in,” he said hoarsely, leading Gabriel through.
    The coffin was in the conservatory. Just like her mother, Rosina had loved the garden. The conservatory had been her favourite room because it overlooked the garden. When he'd had the ruined body treated, O'Malley hadn't hesitated to put the bier in there, with Shalleen's. His wife had lain there since she'd died and would until he joined her. Now mother and daughter were together, and he could watch over them both.
    O'Malley led the way to the lid, open at the moment for any who wished to pay their respects. It was transparent so he would still be able to watch her when it was closed.
    Rosina looked as if she merely slept. The funerary staff had done a fine job repairing the few marks on her face. Her body was beyond their skill, but that didn't matter. No one would see that, and when he activated the stasis chamber, once they had finished mourning, her lovely face would stay that way forever.
    "She's asleep,” Gabriel whispered. “She must be tired."
    O'Malley saw tears stain the boy's face. So he does know, deep down inside, he thought. Gabriel's tears silenced him as if there'd been a spell put on him to stop his mouth.
    "I'll call ‘round tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “She should rest now."
    O'Malley was too tired, too distraught to argue. Perhaps he would have, had he known what lay ahead.
    Jasper hurried home for the funeral, and friends and relatives O'Malley hadn't seen for years came from far and wide. Gabriel didn't go. There was no need. It wasn't Rosina they held the service for—it was the other poor girl. Rosina lay asleep in her bed, like Sleeping Beauty. And when she was ready, he'd wake her with a kiss.
    Every night, a lonely figure stood motionless, waiting in front of the window with the lamps. A figure with patient, haunted eyes. Waiting through the hours for the arrival of a seven o'clock that never came.
    Every night at eleven, the same figure sneaked over the fence, slid open the glass doors, and gazed through the lid at the figure in the bier, the lovely face that never grew older. Sometimes, he didn't know why, he'd find himself shedding a tear. He couldn't understand why. He had no reason to. Because when she'd caught up on her beauty sleep, they would marry.
    In the meantime, he just had to be patient. So while the years crawled by, every night he kept his lonely vigil by the window. Amid the mellow warmth of summer, through the crackling violence