Short Fiction - Dialogue With Snakes pg 3[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] But why should she let anyone get to her? It was the Forest she was here for, not them. It had been too great a prospect to forgo even if it had to be done in this group. She would just have to spend some more time alone. She refused to admit to herself how angry she was. It was hardly worth making a fuss, because she was stuck with them for the rest of the summer. Someday, maybe she would have the clout to make changes. Damn you, Kit, she told herself. A lifetime full of wasted moments. When will you learn?  Kit left the Shades Motel after making sure a key would be left for her with the clerk if everyone else went out. There was a dining room by the registration desk, but it wouldn't be open again until morning. Breakfast, Kit noted by the sign on the dining room door, was served early in Atrauk, from six until nine. She guessed she would be skipping that meal while they were here. Near the door, she found a display of brochures with maps of the area and photographs. She picked one up and stuffed it in her back pocket. A light, cool breeze was all that remained of the former rain, taking the edge off the warmth of the evening. The ground was damp but not bad enough for her to change into her boots. Besides, little would have induced her to voluntarily return to a room with Sally in it. The motel was set on a rise by a gravel road overlooking the highway. In the other direction, the road descended into a ravine dense with trees. The Forest. The road arced off into the distance, through the rain-blued dark, lit by the hazy crescent moon in its shroud of dispersing thunderheads. She pulled the site brochure out of her knapsack and studied it. The motel was marked by a tiny red dot on the lower left-hand corner of the map. She traced the road with her finger, from Atrauk, to the dark blotch that was a ten year old occult mystery. It hardly seemed mysterious at all seen this way. The site was obviously not more than four or five miles in its longest dimension unless the scale of the map was very wrong; the borders of the wood copse marked on the page prevented that. And with the assertion of most visitors that the path through the site ran arrow-straight as far as the eye could see, it could hardly be more than three and a half miles long. She'd have time to walk it tonight, if she chose. She looked up, and stared along the road at the ravine, and suddenly all the detachment she had felt a moment before faded away. The forested area covering the path from view was almost black. She felt colder suddenly, and wished someone else was there to tell her she was being silly. But even before the feeling passed, Kit felt another sensation. She was excited. And the fear, or apprehension was just a flavour for the excitement. After all, without the fear, what reason is there to do anything? She felt so real for a moment, felt her feet in her soggy shoes, the kiss of the night air on her face, a tickle of her hair, the sound of her breathing. And she hated that it couldn't be like this all the time. What had she thought, years ago, idealistic little girl with aspirations to be an actress, a political agitator, of changing the world? The people around her, consumed with money-making concerns and their clothes, and their weight - and now her, as well, guilty of all that made sick in others, apathetic, lazy, getting stupider by the year - Anger! But it was nothing she could hold onto, nothing that made her better, useless passion. Unpassionate passion. What had happened to the magic of being young? Stupid. How could she imagine she was old? She hadn't even begun to live. Something brushed her neck and she gasped. "Hey," said Al. "Quiet. Sorry, I didn't think I was sneaking up." Kit laughed, trying to sound relaxed. "I was somewhere else." "Yeah, I know." His big kind face was wrinkled under its mop of curly dark hair. Such a boy's face, but maybe that was just the eyes. He was not precisely handsome. There was a used quality about him. An old cowboy, that was how Kit found herself thinking of him. He slid his arm around her neck and stroked her ear. Did he know? Kit wondered, how far she'd gone. But she was sure he had no clue, and then inclined her head to let her hair, the strand that had again worked its way loose, fall along his hand. "Did I say something wrong?" said Al, and drew her face around between his palms. "Did you eat tonight?" back to jenstuff
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