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属类: 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 凯斯-唐纳胡] 阅读:[13513]
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我把斯帕克的信夹进我的书里,出去找她,焦灼万分,什么也顾不上就跑到图书馆的草坪上,盼她还没走远。雪已变成了冷雨,湮没了她可能留下的足迹。视野中空无一人。我呼唤她的名字,无人应答,街道空荡得出奇,教堂里的钟声开始敲响又一个礼拜天。我居然傻到在早上八九点钟冒险跑到镇上。人行道密如蛛网,我不知该何去何从。一辆汽车悠然转过街角,司机发现我走在雨中,放慢了车速。她停下车,摇落车窗冲我喊道:“要搭车吗? 你这样会得重感冒的。”

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我还记得要让别人听懂我的声音——在那个悲惨的日子里,这真是不幸中的大幸。“不用,谢谢您,夫人。我正在回家。”

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“别叫我‘夫人’,”她说。她梳着金色的马尾辫,像是我们几个月前洗劫过的那家住的女人,她笑起来嘴角弯弯。“今天上午真不适合出门,你连帽子和手套都没戴。”

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“我就住在街角,谢谢您。”

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“我认识你吗? ”

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我摇摇头,她开始把车窗摇起来。

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“您有没有在这里看到过一个小女孩? ”我叫道。

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“我的双胞胎妹妹,”我撒谎说,“我是出来找她的,她和我差不多大。”

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“没有。我一个人都没看见。”她仔细打量着我,“你住在哪里? 叫什么名字?”

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我迟疑了一下,觉得最好还是速战速决,“我叫比利·斯帕克。”

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“你最好回家,孩子。她会回来的。”

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汽车转过街角,开走了。我心灰意冷地朝河边走去,离开这些让人摸不着头脑的街道,也避免再遇见别的人。细雨连绵,天还不够冷,一时不会有变化,我又湿又寒。阴云遮蔽了太阳,我难以确定方向,只好把河流当做指南针,随着它一路从白日渐渐走入黑暗。我疯狂地寻找着她,一直寻到深夜。一排冬青树下团团挤着冬雀和松鸦,我停下脚步,等待天气转好。

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离开镇子之后,我只听见河水拍打着石砌河岸。我一停下寻找,原本回避的问题就开始侵袭我的脑际。在此后几年中,无法解答的疑问常在我平静时来折磨我。

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斯帕克为何离开了我们? 又为何要离开我? 她不会像齐维和布鲁玛那样去冒险。她要独自一人。虽然斯帕克告诉了我我真正的名字,我还是不知道她的名字。我怎样才能找到她? 我是否应当缄口不言,还是应当和盘托出,给她一个留下来的理由?

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剧痛在我眼后膨胀,钳紧了我悸动的头颅。只是为了不再凝思,我站起身来,继续深一脚浅一脚地穿过潮湿的黑暗,一无所获。

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寒冷,疲惫,饥饿,我走了整整两天,走到了河弯处。斯帕克是大伙中另一个走得这么远的人,而且她还涉水去了对岸。河流蓝得璀璨,水流湍急,漫过水底的岩石和断木,激起雪白的水花。如果斯帕克去了另一头的话,她渡河的时候可真需要点儿胆量。在远远的对岸,一个情景从我疯狂的记忆深处浮现——一个男人,一个女人,还有一个孩子,一头飞快逃走的白鹿,一个穿红衣的女子。“斯帕克。”

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我朝河那边呼喊,但她哪儿都不在。越过这片土地,整个辽阔而未知的世界就呈现眼前。但一切的希望和勇气都弃我而去。我不敢渡河,只好坐在河边等待。到了第三天,我徒步回家,身边没有她。

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我跌跌撞撞地回到营寨,精疲力竭,垂头丧气,什么话都不想说。

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其他人最初几天还不觉得怎样,但到了周末,他们也着急起来。他们给我点了篝火,从铜壶里给我舀了荨麻汤喝l ,于是整件事被我像竹筒.倒豆子似的说了出来,只隐去我得知姓名的一节,还有我未曾对她说出的话。“我一发觉她走了,就出去找她,一直找到河湾那里。她也许一去不复返了。”

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“小宝贝,去睡觉吧,”斯茂拉赫说,“我们会想个办法出来。到了明天一切都会有希望的。”

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但无论是第二天早晨,还是在后来,都没有新的办法和希望。日子一天天过去。

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一有风吹草动,一闻吱呀声响,轻声细语,一到晨光降临,我都会以为她回来了。

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其他人都体谅我的悲伤,给我腾出宽敞的卧铺,想要把我的神志拉回来,让我渐渐放宽心胸。他们也思念着她,但我觉得其余的悲伤都毫不足取,而且我讨厌他们模糊不清的琐碎记忆,讨厌他们没法把事情记清楚。我恨这五个人没有阻止她,恨他们将我带入这种生活,也恨我自己想像中的怪诞地狱。我老是觉得自己看到了她,又老是把其他人看作是她,当看清他们不过是他们时,我的心就一起一落。我还会在乌鸦的翅膀上看到她头发的那种黑色,在溪边见到水流和石头嬉戏,我就会看到她蜷腿而坐的熟悉身影。这种形象如同一头小鹿在洒满阳光的窗口片刻驻足。她无处不在,无时不有,但又从不在此地。

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她的离去在我故事的外皮上留下一个空洞。我一直想要把她忘记,又竭力想把她记住。无论哪种都是徒劳无功。其他人都知道不要当我面提起她,但有一天下午钓鱼结束后,我出乎意料地闯入了一段本不打算让我听到的交谈。

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“好了,不是我们的斯帕克,”斯茂拉赫对其他人说,“如果她还活着,她是不会回来找我们的。”

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仙灵们偷偷地向我瞟来,不知道我听到了多少。我放下我那串鱼,开始刮鳞片,假装他们的交谈对我毫无影响。但听到斯茂拉赫的话,我为之一怔。确有可能她没有活下来,但我宁可去想她或是已经去到了上面的世界,或是去了她所爱的大海。

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一想到大海,我就想到她眼眸的深沉色调,脸上现出一抹淡淡的微笑。

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“她走了,”我对沉默的大伙儿说,“我知道。”

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第二天,我们去溪底翻石头找藏在底下的蝾螈和蜥蜴,把它们放在锅里炖。天气很热,干这活儿付出不少代价,不过饿得前心贴后背的我们享用了一顿丰盛的大杂烩,嘴里“嘎扎嘎扎”地嚼满细碎骨头。星星出来时,我们上床睡觉,肚子饱饱的,浑身肌肉在一天的劳作下疲惫不堪。次日早晨我起得很晚,睡眼惺忪地意识到,昨天我们在找食物时,她一次也没有闯入我心中。我做了下深呼吸。我在忘却了。

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取代斯帕克身影的是索然无味的日子。我坐在地上两眼望天,要么就看蚂蚁列队前进,练习怎么才能将她驱出我的脑海。任何触动记忆的事物都能被剥去其惟我独有的、深藏的意义。一株覆盆子就是一株覆盆子,一头乌鸦也不喻示着什么。话语意味着心中所思,我也试着忘掉亨利·戴,认同自己如今的身份。

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我们全都无所期盼。虽然斯茂拉赫从未这样说过,但我知道他并不打算换生,也没有计划再去偷一个孩子。或许他觉得我们人数太少,不足以应付这种复杂的准备工作,再或许他觉得这个世界本身就在不断变化。在伊格尔当头领的日子里,这件事情总是兴致勃勃地被提起,在贝卡的领导下,就很少谈到了,到了斯茂拉赫,大家绝口不提。没有去镇上的侦查任务,没有要寻找孤独的、被忽视或忘怀的孩子,不再换脸,不再变形,也没有了报告。我们仿佛听天由命似的,着手我们永恒的事务,乐观地等待灾难或遗弃再次降临。

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我不在乎了。我无所畏惧,能毫不犹豫地单独冲进镇上,只是为了给鲁契克偷一盒香烟,或为卡维素芮弄一包糖果。我偷一些没用的东西:手电筒和电池,素描簿和炭笔,棒球和六枚鱼钩。还有一次在圣诞节,我干了些无聊事,在一根山核桃木拐杖顶端凿出一只凶猛的蝙蝠,在我们营寨外用石头围了一个圈,还找了些老乌龟壳,敲碎了做成项链。我独自去到矿渣山上,那个废弃的矿井自从我们离开后仍然保持原样,我把乌龟壳项链放在劳格诺和赞扎拉埋身之处。我不再在半夜睡梦中惊醒,因为生活已经成了一场梦游者的噩梦。好多年过去了,终于有一件事情让我明白,我是忘不了斯帕克的。

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我们在距离营寨几百米处阳光充足的斜坡上种植幼苗。奥尼恩斯偷了些新种子来,几周后就长出了第一批嫩芽——脆豌豆、胡萝卜、韭菜、西瓜秧,还有一排豆荚。那个春天的早晨,卡维素芮、奥尼恩斯、鲁契克和我在菜园里除草,突然听到一阵脚步声,我们像白尾鹿似的猛抬起头,嗅着空气里的味道,准备逃跑或躲藏起来。闯入者是迷路的徒步旅行者,他们偏离了山路,朝我们这边走来。自从开始建造房屋,就偶尔会有人路过这里,而外人看到一片荒地中间冒出我们这块自留地,不免会觉得奇怪。我们把松针铺到菜园里伪装起来,自己躲进树林下。

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两个男青年和一个少女走了过来,他们头戴鸭舌帽,肩背大背囊,兴致高昂,对周围熟视无睹。他们从成排的种植物和我们身边经过。领头的男人眼睛望着天空,第二个女孩看着他,第三个男人则盯着她的后背。虽然走迷了路,他似乎一心一意地就这样盯着。我们安全地尾随其后,他们终于走到山边坐下,喝着瓶装水,拆开甜点包装,减轻了负担。第一个男人拿出一本书,从上面读了一些给那个女孩听,第三个旅行者走到树后去解手。他离开了很长时间,第一个男人不但读完了他的诗,还吻了那个女孩。短短的插曲结束后,三人组重新背上装备,继续前进。我们等了很长一段时间,才跑到他们刚刚坐过的地方。

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两个空水瓶扔在地上,鲁契克一把抓起,又在附近找到了瓶盖。

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他们丢掉了点心的透明包装纸,那个男孩还把他那一小册诗集扔在草地上。卡维素芮把它给我。是路易斯·伯根写的《蓝色河口》。我翻了几页,在一行诗句上停下来:“心中流动的,不仅仅是血。”

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“斯帕克。”我自言自语道。已经有好多年、好几个世纪我没有大声说出她的名字。

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“这是什么,安尼戴? ”卡维素芮问。

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“我要记住。”

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我们四个走回菜园。我回头看看同伴们有没有跟上来,却发现鲁契克和卡维素芮手牵着手,步伐充满活力。我心里装满了斯帕克,急切地再次想要找到她,即使只为了知道她为何离去。我要告诉她,我的心仍然在与她亲密地交谈,我应该请她别走,应该找到适当的话说服她,把我心中流动的东西全部告诉她。我决定从头开始,希望为时不晚。

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I tucked her letter into my book and went to look for Speck. Panic overwhelmed logic, and I ran out onto the library lawn, hoping that she had left only moments before. The QOW had changed over to a cold rain, obliterating any tracks she might have made. Not a single soul could be seen. No one answered when I called her name, and the streets were curiously empty, as church bells began to ring out another Sunday. I was a fool to venture out into town in the middle of the morning. Following the labyrinth of sidewalks, I had no idea which way to go. A car eased around a corner and slowed as the driver spotted me walking in the rain. She braked, rolled down the window, and called out, "Do you need a ride? You’ll catch your death of cold."

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I remembered to make my voice understandable—a single stroke of fortune on that miserable day. "No, thank you, ma’am. I’m going home."

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"Don’t call me ’ma’am,’" she said. She had a blonde ponytail like the woman who lived in the house we had robbed months before, and she wore a crooked smile. "It’s a nasty morning to be out, and you have no hat or gloves."

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"I live around the corner, thank you."

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"Do I know you?"

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I shook my head, and she started to roll up her window.

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"You haven’t seen a little girl out here, have you?" I called out.

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"In this rain?"

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"My twin sister," I lied. "I’m out looking for her. She’s about my size."

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"No. I haven’t seen a soul." She eyed me closely. "Where do you live? What is your name?"

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I hesitated and thought it best to end the matter. "My name is Billy Speck."

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"You’d better go home, son. She’ll turn up."

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The car turned the corner and motored off. Frustrated, I walked toward the river, away from all the confusing streets and the chance of another human encounter. The rain fell in a steady drizzle, not quite cold enough to change over again, and I was soaked and chilled. The clouds obliterated the sun, making it difficult to orient myself, so I used the river as my compass, following its course throughout the pale day and into the slowly emerging darkness. Frantic to find her, I did not stop until late that night. Under a stand of evergreens crowded with winter sparrows and jays, I rested, waiting for a break in the weather.

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Away from the town, all I could hear was the river lapping against the stony shores. As soon as I stopped searching, the questions I had kept at bay began to assault my mind. Unanswerable doubts that would torment me in quiet moments for the next few years. Why had she left us? Why would Speck leave me? She would not have taken the risk that Kivi and Blomma had. She had chosen to be alone. Though Speck had told me my real name, I had no idea of hers. How could I ever find her? Should I have kept quiet, or told all and given her a reason to stay? A sharp pain swelled behind my eyes, pinching my throbbing skull. If only to stop obsessing, I rose and continued to stumble through the wet darkness, finding nothing.

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Cold, tired, and hungry, I reached the bend in the river in two days’ walk. Speck had been the only other person from the clan who had come this far, and she had somehow forded the water to the other side. Sapphire blue, the water ran quickly, breaking over hidden rocks and snags, whitecaps flashing. If she was on the other side, Speck had crossed by dint of courage. On the distant shore, a vision appeared from my deep mad memories—a man, woman, and child, the fleet escape of a white deer, a woman in a red coat. "Speck," I railed across the waters, but she was nowhere. Past this point of land, the whole world unfolded, too large and unknowable. All hope and courage left me. I dared not cross, so I sat on the bank and waited. On the third day, I walked home without her.

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I staggered into the camp, exhausted and depressed, hoping not to talk at all. The others had not worried for the first few days, but by the end of the week, they’d grown anxious and unsettled. After they built a fire and fed me nettle soup from a copper pot, the whole story poured forth—except for the revelation of my name, except for what I had not said to her. "As soon as I realized she was gone, I went to look for her and traveled as far as the river-bend. She may be gone for good."

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"Little treasure, go to sleep," Smaolach said. "We’ll come up with a plan. Another day brings a different promise."

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There was no new plan or promise the next morning or any other. Days came and went. I read every tense moment, every crack and creak, every whisper, every morning light as her return. The others respected my grief and gave me wide berth, trying to draw me back and then letting me drift away. They missed her, too, but I felt any other sorrow a paltry thing, and I resented their shadowy reminiscences and their failure to remember properly. I hated the five of them for not stopping her, for taking me into this life, for the wild hell of my imagination. I kept thinking that I saw her. Mistaking each of the others for her, my heart leapt and fell when they turned out to be merely themselves. Or seeing the darkness of her hair in a raven’s wing. On the bank of the creek, watching the water play over stone, I came upon her familiar form, feet tucked beneath her. The image turned out to be a fawn pausing for a rest in a window of sunshine. She was everywhere, eternally. And never here.

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Her absence leaves a hole in the skin stretched over my story. I spent an eternity trying to forget her, and another trying to remember. There is no balm for such desire. The others knew not to talk about her around me, but I surprised them after an afternoon of fishing, bumbling into the middle of a conversation not intended for my ears.

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"Now, not our Speck," Smaolach told the others. "If she’s alive, she won’t be coming back for us."

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The faeries stole furtive glances at me, not knowing how much I had heard. I put down my string of fish and began to shave the scales, pretending that their discussion had no effect on me. But hearing Smaolach gave me pause. It was possible that she had not survived, but I preferred to think that she had either gone into the upper world or reached her beloved sea. The image of the ocean brought to mind the intense colors of her eyes, and a brief smile crossed my face.

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"She’s gone," I said to the silent group. "I know."

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The following day we spent turning over stones in the creek bed, gathering the hiding newts and salamanders, to cook together in a stew. The day was hot, and the labor took its toll. Famished, we enjoyed a rich, gooey mess, full of tiny bones that crunched as we chewed. When the stars emerged, we all went to bed, our stomachs full, our muscles taxed by the long day. I awoke quite late the next morning and drowsily realized that she had not once crossed my mind when we were foraging the previous day. I took a deep breath. I was forgetting.

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Speck’s presence was replaced by dullness. I would sit and stare at the sky or watch ants march, and practice driving her out of my mind. Anything that triggered a memory could be stripped of its personal, embedded meanings. A raspberry is a raspberry. The blackbird is a metaphor for nothing. Words signify what you will. I tried to forget Henry Day as well, and accept my place as the last of my kind.

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All of us were waiting for nothing. Smaolach never said so, but I knew he was not looking to make the change. And he hatched no plans to steal another child. Perhaps he thought our number too few for the complex preparations, or perhaps he sensed the world itself was changing. In I gel’s day, the subject came up all the time with a certain relentless energy, but less so under Béka, and never under Smaolach. No reconnaissance missions into town, no searching out the lonesome, neglected, or forgotten. No face-pulling, no contortions, no reports. As if resigned, we went about our eternal business, sanguine that another disaster or abandonment awaited.

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I did not care. A certain fearlessness filled me, and I would not hesitate to run into town alone, if only to swipe a carton of cigarettes for Luchóg or a bag of sweets for Chavisory. I stole unnecessary things: a flashlight and batteries, a drawing pad and charcoals, a baseball and six fishing hooks, and once, at Christmas, a delicious cake in the shape of a firelog. In the confines of the forest, I fiddled with idle tasks—whittling a fierce bat atop a hickory CUM laying a stone ring around the circumference of our camp, searching for old turtle shells and crafting the shards into a necklace. I went up alone to the slag hillside and the abandoned mine, which lay undisturbed, as we had left it, and placed the tortoiseshell necklace where Ragno and Zanzara lay buried. My dreams did not wake me up in the middle of the night, but only because life had become a somnambulant nightmare. A handful of seasons had passed when a chance encounter finally made me realize that Speck was beyond forgetting.

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We were tending to delicate seedlings planted on a sun-drenched slope a few hundred yards from camp. Onions had stolen new seeds, and within weeks up came the first tender shoots—snap peas, carrots, scallions, a watermelon vine, and a row of beans. Chavisory, Onions, Luchóg, and I were weeding in the garden on that spring morning, when the sound of approaching feet caused us to rise like whitetail, to sniff the wind, ready to flee or hide. The intruders were lost hikers, off the trail and headed in our direction. Since the housing development had risen, we had a rare traveler pass our way, but our cultivated patch might look a bit peculiar to these strangers out in the middle of nowhere. We disguised the garden under pine brush and hid ourselves beneath a skirt of trees.

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Two young men and a young woman, caps upon their heads, huge backpacks strapped at the shoulders, walked on, cheerful and oblivious. They strolled past the rows of plants and us. The first man had his eye on the world ahead. The second person—the girl—had her eye on him, and the third man had his eye on her backside. Though lost, he seemed intent on the one thing. We followed safely behind, and they eventually settled down a hill away to drink their bottled water, unwrap their candy bars, and lighten their loads. The first man took out a book and read something from it to the girl, while the third hiker went off behind the trees to relieve himself. He was gone a long time, for the man with the book had the chance not only to finish his poem but to kiss the girl, as well. When their small interlude ended, the threesome strapped on their gear and marched away. We waited a decent spell before running to the spot they had vacated.

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Two empty water bottles littered the ground, and Luchóg snatched them up and found the caps nearby. They had discarded the cellophane wrappers from their snacks, and the boy had left his slim volume of poems lying on the grass. Chavisory gave it to me. The Blue Estuaries by Louise Bogan. I leafed through a few pages and stopped at the phrase That more things move/Than blood in the heart.

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"Speck," I said to myself. I had not said her name aloud in ages, in centuries.

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"What is it, Aniday?" Chavisory asked.

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"I am trying to remember."

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The four of us walked back to the garden. I turned to see if my comrades were following the same path, only to discover Luchóg and Chavisory, walking step by ginger step, holding hands. My thoughts flooded with Speck. I felt an urgency to find her again, if only to understand why she had gone. To tell her how the private conversations of my mind were still with her. I should have asked her not to go, found the right words to convince her, confessed all that moved in my heart. And ever hopeful that it was not too late, I resolved to begin again.

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