Mage the Awakening - Tome of the Mysteries.pdf

(55173 KB) Pobierz
Tome of the Mysteries
111768460.068.png 111768460.079.png 111768460.090.png 111768460.101.png 111768460.001.png 111768460.012.png 111768460.023.png 111768460.034.png 111768460.035.png 111768460.036.png 111768460.037.png 111768460.038.png 111768460.039.png 111768460.040.png
 
111768460.041.png
 
111768460.042.png
 
111768460.043.png
 
111768460.044.png
 
111768460.045.png
 
111768460.046.png
 
111768460.047.png 111768460.048.png
 
111768460.049.png
 
111768460.050.png
 
111768460.051.png
 
111768460.052.png
 
111768460.053.png 111768460.054.png 111768460.055.png 111768460.056.png 111768460.057.png
TRUTHS
I guess, if I’m being honest,
I’ve always known about magic.
I remember being eight years old and listening
to my mother and my father argue. That’s nothing
special, except that when they caught me,
Mom would glance at me and squint a bit,
and I’d wake up the next morning
thinking it was all a dream.
I can’t blame her. She just wanted me
to be happy. She didn’t want her son to worry
about his parents. I bet a lot of people
with rocky marriages wish they could make
their kids forget the screaming matches
and the lies and everything. My mother
just happened to be able to do it.
The word “magic” didn’t occur to me, though,
until the day she disappeared. I was about 12,
I guess, and my mother was late coming home.
By then I was old enough to know words like
“affair” and “alcoholic,” and I had been suspended
from school for punching out a kid who
used those words in reference to my mom.
I didn’t hit him because he was lying.
I hit him because I believed him.
He said my mother came to see his father,
at least once a month, and they went off together.
So that day I was home from school,
my knuckles still swollen. And Mom pulled
111768460.058.png 111768460.059.png 111768460.060.png 111768460.061.png 111768460.062.png 111768460.063.png 111768460.064.png 111768460.065.png 111768460.066.png 111768460.067.png 111768460.069.png 111768460.070.png 111768460.071.png
into the driveway, and when she got out of her car,
she looked awful. She didn’t look like she’d been
out all night. She looked ragged, like she hadn’t
slept for a week, even though it had only been
a day since she’d been home. Dad came storming
out of the house, but he didn’t call her names or
accuse her. He just said, “This has to stop.
Joel knows something’s wrong.
You can’t keep doing this.”
I’ll never forget the look on Mom’s face.
I guess it all came crashing down that morning
Ð me standing on the porch cradling my hand,
Dad standing in front of her angry, but so
obviously scared, and Mom half-in, half-out of her
ancient Olds, hair in snarls, burn marks
(burn marks?) on her face. I saw tears in her eyes,
and she said something, but I didn’t catch it. And
Dad just turned around, walked right by me into
the house, sat down in his chair and fell asleep.
Mom told me she was going away and that it
didn’t mean she didn’t love me, blah blah blah.
It was the usual speech that kids get, I guess,
but it felt wrong, because she really did love me,
and she really did love Dad. There was just
something between them, she said, and that
part was true, but it wasn’t another
man or anything like that.
It was magic.
I knew it when Mom touched my forehead, and I
felt the memories of that morning sliding away like
icicles through my fingers. I fought, I shut my eyes
and shook my head, trying to keep my mind,
111768460.072.png 111768460.073.png 111768460.074.png 111768460.075.png 111768460.076.png 111768460.077.png 111768460.078.png 111768460.080.png 111768460.081.png 111768460.082.png 111768460.083.png 111768460.084.png 111768460.085.png 111768460.086.png 111768460.087.png 111768460.088.png 111768460.089.png 111768460.091.png 111768460.092.png 111768460.093.png
and the next thing I knew, I was waking up.
Dad was in his chair, staring at the TV,
trying not to cry. He didn’t remember
why Mom had left, and he went to his grave
thinking she’d run off with another man.
I remembered. I found out when I went back
to school that the kid I’d punched out had lost
his father, the same day my mother had left.
Only that kid didn’t know the truth, and he
never would, because his father was dead.
His father had died in a fire outside of town,
at a farmhouse that had stood empty for 30 years.
No one even knew why he’d been there, and
the local police chalked it up to a secret drug or
booze habit and called it a day. I didn’t know the
truth about why that man died, but I knew
a truth -- I knew that it had something to do
with my mother. But I was 12, and I didn’t know
who to tell or what to do, so I just let it be.
I didn’t see any more magic for four years.
Four years later, my sophomore class took a
trip across the bridge into Cincinnati and went
to the Natural History Museum. I got bored and
left the group, and I opened a door into a
stairwell. I heard two people talking on the floor
above me, so I was about to duck back into the
museum, but then I heard one of them say,
“You’re going to wind up like Helen.”
Helen was my mother’s name. I stopped to listen.
It never occurred to me for a second that they
weren’t talking about my mother. They were. It was
a truth, though I couldn’t have said how I knew it.
111768460.094.png 111768460.095.png 111768460.096.png 111768460.097.png 111768460.098.png 111768460.099.png 111768460.100.png 111768460.102.png 111768460.103.png 111768460.104.png 111768460.105.png 111768460.106.png 111768460.107.png 111768460.108.png 111768460.109.png 111768460.110.png 111768460.111.png 111768460.002.png 111768460.003.png 111768460.004.png 111768460.005.png 111768460.006.png 111768460.007.png 111768460.008.png 111768460.009.png 111768460.010.png 111768460.011.png 111768460.013.png
The voice I’d heard was a man. The one
who spoke next was a woman. “Helen tried to
control everything. She lied to her family and
then tried to make them forget it,” she said.
The man scoffed, and I heard him tapping on the
railing. “There wasn’t anything she could have done.
She married a Sleeper. He wouldn’t have under-
stood even if she’d tried to help him. She should
have left before she did, but thank God she left
before her kid got old enough to figure it out.”
I wanted to yell at them. I wanted to tell them
that I had figured it out Ð but really, I hadn’t.
All I’d known was that Mom had a life she didn’t
share with Dad and me, and to say that, to
admit that, would have been more than I was
ready for. So I stood there and waited, hoping
they’d say something about where Mom was.
They didn’t. The door opened, and my
teacher found me. She accused me of going
in there to smoke, even though there were
no cigarettes around and no smoke in the air.
My teacher was a bitch.
I stole my Dad’s car that night and drove
back to the museum, but I couldn’t find the
courage to go in. I just sat there across
the street, trying to figure what I’d say.
I didn’t even know what those people looked
like. I didn’t know what they meant by “Sleeper.”
I just knew they knew my mother, and I had
this sick feeling, from the way they talked,
that she was dead. I was wrong about that.
111768460.014.png 111768460.015.png 111768460.016.png 111768460.017.png 111768460.018.png 111768460.019.png 111768460.020.png 111768460.021.png 111768460.022.png 111768460.024.png 111768460.025.png 111768460.026.png 111768460.027.png 111768460.028.png 111768460.029.png 111768460.030.png 111768460.031.png 111768460.032.png 111768460.033.png

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin