Frozen Fire by Bill Evans, Marianna Jameson Read Free Book Online Page B

walls, marveling at the tenacity of the lice that clung to fragile strands of everyone’s hair, enjoying every gleeful leap of the fleas across the stained, rotting mattresses. And he remembered how right it had felt to finally punish one of the older boys who delighted in trapping and torturing helpless creatures, including Garner. The boy had always made a point of displaying his cruelty to any interested parties.
    One night—he couldn’t have been more than five—Garner climbed on top of the bully as he slept, much as the boy had done to him so many times. But Garner hadn’t done the horrible, painful things the other boy always did to him. Instead, he’d simply pressed the boy’s face into the foul mattress, had sat on his head, gripping the heavy iron bedframe with his hands until the muffled screams and the writhing stopped. The other boys in the bed had watched blankly, making no move to help the bully, no move to stop Garner. They just watched as Garner sat there, his arse and thighs clamped around the bigger boy’s ragged, greasy head. After a long time, Garner had climbed off him and dragged the limp body from the cot. He placed it along the wall knowing that it would provide sustenance for many creatures infinitely more deserving of life. The other boys ignored him, too busy staking their claims to the empty, still-warm space on the bed.
    The next morning, the matrons found a few dozen mildly curious children gathered around the stiff body, and Garner sitting next to its head. Rats had discovered the corpse during the night, as had the flies and roaches, and they all carried on as Nature directed with sublime disregard for their audience. One of the matrons sent the children scattering with a few heavy, indiscriminate, backhanded slaps; another pulled a sheet from the nearest bed and covered the remains. Late in the day, what was left of the body was taken away.
    That necessary removal of such a worthless human from Garner’s existence was his first triumph and the first moment in his life that had ever held any meaning for him.
    There were other significant moments subsequently, especially the few quiet victories after his “rescue” by the English couple who adopted him the following year. The Blaylocks were what others called “good people.”They had unequivocally adored Garner and privately congratulated themselves on having had their noble gesture of saving a Romanian orphan validated by getting a boy who’d turned out to be so “English.”
    Named Garner after some missionary relative of theirs, he’d accepted his new life with no fuss. He was quiet, stoic, and respectful. He did well in school, did what he was told at home. The Blaylocks and his teachers were certain that his exemplary behavior was rooted in deep-seated gratitude. It never occurred to them that he simply didn’t care what he wore, what he was fed, what he was told to do.
    But Garner did care about what the people around him did. He watched with mute hatred as the Blaylocks and their friends gathered to hunt foxes, letting the frenzied pack of hounds rip the terrified creatures to pieces after the horses were exhausted and the humans had had their fill of adventure. He said nothing as they set traps baited with poison all around their home and farm to kill insects, rodents, and certain birds that annoyed them. As they castrated their bulls and dogs, as they slaughtered and ate hens and rabbits and weeks-old piglets.
    The Blaylocks gave him their name, an education that led to a degree from Oxford, and, eventually, their entire estate. Their deaths and those of his nominal siblings had been as necessary as the bully’s had been as Garner sought to restore balance, and achieve his financial goals. The deaths of his English “family” had required much more planning and forethought than the death of the bully, but he’d gotten away with them just as easily.
    When the Blaylocks’ biological son and daughter—twins—became