The Emperor of Any Place by Tim Wynne-Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

place,” says Griff.
    “Right. Uh . . . Yeah . . . It’s this way.” Evan holds out his hand, indicating the stairwell, like he’s some goofball bellhop at the Hilton.
    Griff picks up his bag and briefcase in one huge, knotted hand, and with his other hand clamped to the railing, he one-steps his way, old man style, down the stairs.
    “Did I leave the light on in the car?” says Evan.
    The man stops and slowly turns. “What’s that?”
    “You stopped in the driveway and you were staring at the carport. You looked as if you were frowning.”
    “The Ford Escort,” says Griff, shaking his head. He looks peeved, as if there’s something he cannot comprehend. “It just seemed remarkable to me that your daddy and I would end up driving the same damn automobile.”
    Then he turns to go but stops and looks back up at Evan, his face now half in shadows. “Keen observation, soldier,” he says.
    Keen,
says Evan to himself.
    Griff stops again at the bottom. “So, shall we say oh-eight-hundred hours for debriefing? Or are you a late sleeper?” Evan would never have guessed that the words “late sleeper” could sound so much like “Satan’s spawn.”
    He shrugs. “Whatever,” he says. “I’m not like on a . . . you know, schedule.”
    “Schedule,” says the old man, turning the
ch
into a
k.
From what Evan can make of his expression, the word has a whole different meaning to Griff.
    He turns away. The wall-to-wall carpet says
shhh
as he opens the downstairs door and
shhh
as he closes it.

    There was a magic pond. That is what I decided it was. I was so parched, you see — so desperate for water — that until I drank from the pond, it was as if I were not truly alive. I wandered up some path made by animals, crawling part of the way, scarcely able to move at all, hoping that such a well-worn path must lead to water. I parted the rushes with my hands, and there it was, a deep, green pool.
    The air was laced with fine blue dragonflies; the sun glanced off their translucent wings. I sank to the soft earth and, leaning forward, placed my hands in the pond. I lifted the water to my face, gasped at the cool of it, opened my cracked and salt-stained lips to receive its blessing. My hands were smoke-blackened, my knuckles scraped raw, and the water felt like a salve. And my throat . . . Ah, my throat opened to the water like a flower to rain.
    I leaned back on my ankles, my wet hands resting on my thighs. “
Tasukatta,
” I said to the dragonflies. “What a relief.” Then I raised my hands and, placing them together, bowed reverently to the green pond.
    When I opened my eyes again, my ghostly family of children was there, scattered around the fringe of the pond, their transparent bodies visible behind the reeds, each watching me reverently with the steady gaze of a newborn child upon its mother. I bowed to them all.
    Leaning on my fists, I stared into the shimmering surface of the water. Might it be poisonous? I dismissed the idea. After all, how many times could you die in one day?
    In a glossy-leaved bush nearby, a white-throated ground dove whistled at me and chirped. “Hello,
hato-chan,
” I said. “Thank you for welcoming me to your island.” The dove paid me not the slightest attention, fluttered to the ground, and dipped its beak into the water.
    I watched the bird, its plumage so much finer than my own. Ha! I was down to nothing but a loincloth. The bird sipped the water, not six feet from me but undisturbed by my alien presence. And, Hisako, you will forgive me if I admit to you that I had the strangest thought:
This bird has lived forever. The dove is fearless because nothing can kill it.
“So maybe this sweet water is an elixir,” I said out loud. “Maybe I will live forever, too.”
    In the dappled coolness of this clearing, I dipped my hands back into the pond, but this time I dug down deep into the cold, thick mud. At once I felt the healing in it. I scooped up the rich brown sludge, let it drip