Page 72 of A Boy Called Lovesong

Up ahead the sound of the harmonica grew louder, and in the dark, I saw him.

At first all I could make out was his shadowy shape and the sight of his white linen shirt—is that why he wore white out here, as some sort of beacon?—but as I drew nearer, I could make out his features, his hands moving the harmonica back and forth along his lips.

He was sitting on an old wooden crate in the middle of the crossroads, and I realized it was the same box I had seen Iggy dancing on the day I met him. I also realized there was a strap running diagonally across his chest. It was his guitar strap, the acoustic guitar now resting against his back, the neck pointing down.

I was a hundred or so feet away from him when the harmonica abruptly stopped playing.

I took one step too far in the deathly silence, my shoe crunching on the dirt.

I froze.

Lovesong stiffened and slowly, silently, put the harmonica in his breast pocket.

He turned his face left and right, his ears like radars.

“Who’s out there?” he demanded in a stern, fearless tone.

I didn’t move a muscle. I even stopped breathing.

“I said who’s there?” This time his voice was even louder.

I realized I had stopped moving in an awkward position, almost mid-step, too much weight on my front foot, not enough on my back foot. I was beginning to teeter. I needed to shift my balance.

Slowly I increased the weight on my back foot.

The dirt began to crunch beneath my shoe, so quietly I could barely hear it.

But Lovesong could.

He turned his head to face directly at me, like he could see me, clear as day. “Who are you? I know you’re there, so tell me who you are! Whether you’re the Devil or not, make yourself known!”

Suddenly a crash of thunder split the sky with aBOOMso loud I startled and fell.

Lovesong heard me hit the ground, even over the crackle of thunder tearing across the sky right above us.

Instantly he broke into a sprint, heading straight for me, even though he couldn’t see, like a wild animal trusting his other senses, his instincts and his knowledge of this landscape more than enough to track me down.

I panicked and pulled myself up, feet scrambling noisily against the dirt, launching myself into a mad dash not down the road, but into the cotton fields that might conceal me.

I pushed my way into the forest of cotton plants. The base of the bolls, where the cotton sprouted from, was sharp and prickly, and they scratched at my arms and face.

Above me the clouds opened.

The rain was so heavy it pelted the cotton plants like bullets.

I glanced back and saw Lovesong tearing through the bushes behind me, my gasping and panting an easy target to pursue.

I don’t know why I was so terrified of letting him know it was me who had stalked him. I guess I didn’t want him to know that I knew about his strange midnight vigils, in case it might lead to him finding out why I was there in Clara’s Crossing in the first place. I had the childish hope that if I didn’t know his secret, he wouldn’t know mine, even though all our secrets were at some point bound to collide.

So, I kept running.

I mopped the rain out of my eyes.

My feet slipped in the mud, but I kept going, kept pushing myself forward, until suddenly—

The cotton plants parted before me and I was stumbling toward the doors of a shed.

I was disoriented.

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