Whispers in the Mist by Lisa Alber Read Free Book Online

up at the wrong times.
    “Stay where I can see you,” she called. “And sing something so I can hear you.”
    “No!” A few seconds later Petey started in on the ABCs.
    Ellen pulled her mobile out of her jacket pocket and dialed Danny’s number. But after two rings, she hung up. She couldn’t bear the thought of him pooh-poohing her uneasiness, of finding her wanting in some way. Not today.
    “Petey!” she called. “I’ll be right there. Keep singing.”
    “I hate you!” His voice, vibrant with outrage and mock bravery, comforted her. Alive and well and sitting atop the wall, waiting to take her hand for the return trek. He continued singing the ABCs.
    Ellen stooped back into the cottage and toward the object that Petey had poked with his foot. A sleeping bag. In the far corner she noted a nest of sweaters and a faint smell of cat urine. Someone was feeding the kittens milk with plastic gloves as teats. It didn’t look to be going well.
    Ah, Christ. Squatters and kittens.
    She backtracked toward the distressed mewling. Poor, poor mites. Unloved. In need of their share of cuddles too. She picked them up. Under the grime, they looked to be tabbies. She held them against her heart, feeling them settle into her warmth, feeling their fragility, feeling her own like cracked glass.
    Something needed to be done, but she didn’t know what. Only that she couldn’t keep mewling about in ineffectual circles like the kittens she carried against her breast.

SEVEN
    T HE CROWD WAS STILL going strong at Alan’s pub at half eleven when Danny entered. Sleep had eluded him. He couldn’t rid himself of the image of Lost Boy’s gaze going lifeless, the way his last blink had shuddered to a stop with eyelids half covering his eyes.
    So here he stood, surrounded by dozens of visitors to the village, some with arms around their new life-mates. A year ago, he thought, he’d still lived at home, he’d still had Liam and Kevin in his life. He’d had a life. Now he had to make do with the pub when his thoughts were too loud to let him sleep.
    Danny caught Alan’s headshake from above his customers’ heads. “Don’t bother,” he called. “Come around. I’ll put you to work.”
    Danny did as directed. Alan waved Danny to a stool located behind the bar. “Only room there is,” he said.
    Danny gazed around the pub from his novel position. He’d never noticed the way the firelight and stained glass light fixtures reflected cheerful light baubles across the walls. Or the way the Sláinte! sign looked about to fall down. Spilled beer, heated wool sweaters, and peat made for a peculiar but welcoming potpourri. It didn’t look half bad and it might not feel half bad to view a sea of smiles every night.
    Alan ordered Danny to grab his own Guinness, and while he was at it, to keep on pouring them because he couldn’t keep up. Danny was glad enough for the distraction. He lined pints to the right side of the taps to settle and placed the topped-off pints to his left. Quick as lightning they disappeared onto the waitresses’ trays or Alan’s quick grip.
    After fifteen minutes of this, tension brought on by Lost Boy’s death settled into a slight tightness in his lower back. The death had felt like watching a premonition take on form. The sparrow hadn’t helped his uneasiness. What had Benjy said? Soul-bearers?
    Danny gulped a mouthful of Guinness and listened in on the chat. The two Joes, Elder and Junior, were in rare form, soused on gin and mouthing off about the state of Ireland now that peoples from everywhere were moving in, changing their country with their Eastern Bloc “hoorish” ways. Sitting between the two of them, Nathan Tate, a new regular, sipped his beer and dared to disagree with them. “A few Polish girls aren’t the problem. The bloody economy is.”
    The fight was off and running then.
    “Most of them can’t talk or understand us,” Elder Joe bellowed. “They’re changing our words the way they misuse