Extraits

THE GHOST

“Miss Barrie?” Max asked softly, looking between our faces.

“The night cook,” Brand said. He cleared his throat and shook his head, coming out of his momentary surprise. “She would have been here that evening. We didn’t have many staff who spent the night, but she was in charge of late meals and prepping breakfast. She was…nice. She was a very nice woman.”

“There was this one time…” I said, and then stopped to smile. It was hard to talk and smile at the same time just then, and I wanted to smile, because I’d just swallowed a lot of sadness.

I said, “We were about six or seven. Brand and I had separate training tracks by then. He was learning about nutrition, and because he was already insufferable at that age, he decided the lesson on nutrition applied to me, not just him. So he marched into the kitchen with his puffy blue Trapper Keeper notebook and asked Miss Barrie about my saturated fat intake.”

Max laughed. “Really? What did she do?”

“She started making cookies. There’s still a photo somewhere of

Brand licking the spatula.”

“That is a lie,” Brand insisted.

“It is not,” I said. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to turn the picture over to the kids so they can make memes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, you believed we actually have a jar that is somehow magically sentient, and which understands if a person is swearing, and which then keeps track of it. Without any hands or a pen or anything.”

Brand glared at me.

“Honestly, how long have you known me?” I said. “At what point did I become Gandalf?”

THE PLAYGROUND

“It’s only across the streets from the gate,” Brand said. “We could use the motorcycle and sidecar.”

“Do you have a kid helmet?” I asked.

“I have an extra helmet and duct tape,” he said.

“Don’t tape the ducks,” Corbie mumbled sadly to his feet.

“Yeah, Brand,” I said. “Don’t tape the ducks.”

“Fine, we’ll walk. But I’m not carrying anything else.”