Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) by Travis Thrasher Read Free Book Online

mannequin showed up in my cabin, and it was made by you.”
    He nods, then dabs his finger in his little jar and rubs it over his lips. “Doesn’t surprise me in the least. Was it a lady? Curly blond hair?”
    I nod, and suddenly the back of my neck feels sweaty.
    “That was one of the last ones I made.”
    “Who was it for?”
    “Is that what you’re really wanting to know? Who asked me to make that mannequin? Is that your main question?”
    “It’s one of them.”
    Alfred stands and then walks over to a dark-haired dummy with bold eyes that seem to be bearing down on me.
    “Do you believe that animals go to heaven, Chris?”
    I shake my head, not sure what to say.
    “I believe that animals are born without souls. They’re wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But they don’t have souls . Yet they are God’s creatures, and they can sense the spiritual world. Especially when that world is full of unrest. Am I not right?”
    I think about Midnight, then about Iris’s bluebird, then about the random kinds of animals I’ve encountered around here.
    “These creatures are the same,” he says as he puts his finger on the lips of the lady he’s standing next to and does the same sort of weird motion. “They are born without souls. They are harmless. They are merely … vessels.”
    My skin crawls. Alfred seemed lost in his weird sort of act with the mannequin until saying that last word and looking at me.
    Vessels.
    “In most places in the world, these vessels would be merely that.” He takes his hand and knocks on the hard face. “Just hollow, empty figures. Beautiful, true, but empty. Yet Solitary, as you already know, Chris, is not like most places in the world. Trust me, I know. I’ve seen what’s out there. This is truly a special place. And you, my dear boy, are truly a special person.”
    We jumped from creepy to blood-curdling the moment this guy said vessels.
    Because in a way, it clicked. Not in a rational, oh-okay, two-plus-two-equals-four sort of way.
    I just suddenly get what he’s talking about, and there’s nothing about it that I like.
    “Do you believe in magic, Chris?”
    I stare at this ordinary-looking guy who I’d never pay any attention to on the street. Yet now I study his every move and action and word.
    “I’m coming to believe in a lot of things these days.”
    Alfred walks to the back of the room and starts to slowly stroke the red hair of a mannequin that appears to be laughing. “There is a dark magic in the world, a magic I’ve witnessed with my own eyes, a kind that I used to try and tell Iris about, though she never wanted to hear it or believe it.”
    Did he just say …
    “I told her, but she didn’t want any part of it.”
    I think my mouth must be hanging open, because he looks my way and laughs. “Yes, Chris. Iris. Your lovely Iris.”
    “You know Iris?”
    He walks over to another figure that I haven’t noticed before. This one is sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. As if watching from afar, not enjoying herself.
    She looks like Iris. A young Iris that I once saw in the pictures.
    This is so incredibly wrong. All of it.
    “I’m still waiting. Still hoping. Still wanting.”
    He doesn’t say anything more.
    For a moment I look back at the hallway and the front door.
    “You can leave anytime you want,” Alfred says. “There won’t be any magic show tonight. If that’s what you’re wanting.”
    “How long have you known Iris?”
    “Ever since she moved here. And before she lost her son. That poor sick child. I offered to help. I offered to do anything possible. Anything. But she refused. She refused to believe. But people always have to learn the hard way. Don’t they, Chris?”

14. Help
    Back home I get an email from my father. It’s strange because he normally doesn’t send a lot of emails, and the timing of this is a bit suspicious. Yet I believe it’s him because of what he says.
    Hey, Chris. Hope you and Mom are doing well. I began