Read The Bone People for Free Online Page A

raining?"
    Gillayley: shrug.
    "Write it down dammit, if you can't think of any other way to say it. A shrug tells me nothing."
    He looks slyly sideways, away from her eyes.
    "Well?"
    Gillayley: sigh. Followed by a hiccough.
    He hears the sound with an expression of pained surprise.
    She collars the last of the bottles of stout, and watches him from under her lids.
    I'll be hellishing popular if I send it home drunk.
    "I'll put it another way then... why don't you want to stay with the Tainuis, whoever they are, for the night?"
    SHE PETS ME AND CRY FOR JOE SP
    "You needn't sign these damn things. I can see who they come from... pets you? Who?
    MARAMA. SHE KISS ME AND she's leaning, watching over his shoulder now,
    "I know, cry for Joe... ah sheeit, archetypical small boy distaste! I love it, I love! Ah beautiful!"
    Hey easy, a couple of bottles of stout shouldn't cause that much mirth... but look at his face, delicious!
    Careful, now he's looking at you like you were kind of nutty--
    She sobers. She says straightfaced,
    "I'm sorry, but that just seemed funny... now I understand, and sympathise a little. I don't like people kissing and fussing over me either. Can you tell me when Joe -- uh, he's your father?"
    Groggy nods.
    "When Joe is likely to be home?"
    Obligingly, the urchin writes a clear answer.
    NO. SP
    The initialling is obviously a reflex.
    "Well, unless your father arrives first, you can stay here until the Tainuis ring. Okay?"
    His hand comes out, pauses, and then as if reaching over a barrier, takes her hand. How touching, says
    Kerewin's innermost being, the Snark, squirming through a gamut of connotations, that and the guileless
    Gillayley smile. Too much.
    "Agreed then. Sooo, it's about lamplighting time, not to mention fire-resuscitation. You want to help? You
    can uh, hold things," removing her hand but gently.
    As she collects kerosene and lamps, putting much into the child's ready arms, she considers two things.
    Is it better the devil you don't know?
    Or simply, variety is the spice of life?
    And she wants to know more and more, the halloween pumpkin grin renewing the query every minute, how
    the brat comes to lack teeth on one whole side of his jaw.
    The lamps are hung, hissing quietly: she gets busy on the fire, piling logs and heaping coal on top. The coal
    dust flares and crackles, and all the shadows in the room retreat to the corners.
    For the first time she can see the child clearly. Slender and prominently boned, his smallness making him
    seem frail. A sallowness about his face, a waxen depth that accentuates the bruise marks of tiredness under
    his eyes, and the narrowness of his face.
    Hey where you been? Watch you been doin?
    For, as he stands there waiting on her next move or gesture so he may make his reciprocal offering, all the
    vivacity has gone out of him.
    My god, he really is desperately tired.
    Well, the long walk -- if he walked here.
    The tension of being caught, and wondering what I would do.
    The drink of course.
    And maybe all this is like a fine drawn duel to him, words
    against his miming.
    "You're tired, Simon?"
    He examines the question, screwing his head into his shoulders, and nodding once.
    Yes, more than tired.
    "Well, why not go to bed until someone calls?"
    He even starts to droop wearily, but he frowns. Yes, again, but it's given reluctantly.
    "My bedroom's upstairs. You can use it for a while. This way," and she vanishes up the dark spiral.
    She don't like me around much. I'm staying though.
    He stands still a minute, gathering his strength for the long walk up the stairs.
    A spiral staircase can be surprising, because you can't see more than a step and a half in front. Kerewin,
    coming rapidly back down to find out anything that may have happened, nearly knocks the child all his slow
    progress back.
    "Whoops and hie," grasping the handrail to halt herself. "I wondered where you'd got to."
    He looks to his foot, and up again, apologetically.
    "Well, keep going, the