Page 104 of A Boy Called Lovesong

Then I saw the two of them up ahead in the middle of the crossroads—Lovesong and Iggy—both of them playing their hearts out.

“Lovesong!” I tried to call to him, but I was so out of breath I could barely hear my own voice.

My feet began to trip over themselves, but I kept running—or stumbling toward him—as fast as I could.

“Lovesong!”

I saw him turn his head, hearing my voice over the guitar.

“Lovesong!”

He stopped playing and held out his hand to quiet Iggy.

“Lovesong!”

He put down his guitar. “Noah?” He started moving toward me, feeling his way till I literally fell into his arms. “Noah, are you all right? I’m sorry. I’m sorry I came here. I know you told me not to, but I had to try one more—”

“Your father… it’s your father. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what? What happened?”‘

“He attacked me. He tried to kill me, then he tried to kill Maybelle.”

“Oh my God. Did he hurt you? Are you all right?”

“I had to stop him, Lovesong. I had to. He was going to kill Maybelle. So I pushed him. I pushed him down the stairs. And now…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

So Lovesong said it for me. “And now he’s dead.”

“I’m sorry. Oh God, I’m so, so sorry.”

Lovesong shook his head, not a tear in his eyes. “I’m not. You were the one who said it, Noah. God… the Devil… neither one exists without men and women to do their bidding. The way that man treated me my whole life, that’s not God’s will. There’s poison in him. There’s a cruelty, a malice he inflicts on others, that’s made me question my whole life if we even serve the same Lord.”

With aclickety-clackof his spoons, Iggy came dancing over to us, that big knowing grin on his face. “Lord of the light, Lord of the dark. It’s time to come face to face with one of them.”

Lovesong’s brow creased. “What do you mean, Iggy?”

Iggy did a little shoe shuffle and danced in a circle as he said, “I means the Flim-Flam Man is finally comin’ for you.”

Fear wrapped its claws around my heart and the cannon fire of thunder shook the blackened skies. “What do you mean he’s coming? He’s coming now?”

Iggy answered with a point of his fingers, gesturing back down the road from which I came.

There in the distance, moving closer with each angry step, was a figure dressed in black, with a black wide-brimmed hat on his head…

A hat exactly like the reverend’s hat.

I gasped. “It can’t be.”

“It can’t be what?” Lovesong said. “Noah? Tell me what you see.”

“He sees the Flim-Flam Man,” Iggy chuckled. “Time for a showdown!”

Lovesong knelt and took Iggy by the shoulders. “Iggy. Who’s coming? Who is it?”

“I’s told you. That be the Flim-Flam Man.” Iggy suddenly spotted the harmonica that Lovesong had tucked into the breast pocket of his shirt. “Oooh, looky here at that pretty thing. I think I’s be doing some tradin’ of my own.”

Iggy swiftly lifted the harmonica out of the pocket, replacing it with his spoons.

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