He wants me scared, all the time. I'm the
eldest. I'm the one who left the mountain. I'm the one who came first,
and made all the connections with the outside world. They all looked to
me to explain the world, but I never had any explanations that would
suit Davey."
"This is pretty weird," he said.
Alan cocked his head at Kurt. He was about thirty, old for a punk, and
had a kind of greasy sheen about him, like he didn't remember to wash
often enough, despite his protestations about his cleanliness. But at
thirty, he should have seen enough to let him know that the world was
both weirder than he suspected and not so weird as certain mystically
inclined people would like to believe.
Arnold didn't like this moment of disclosure, didn't like dropping his
carefully cultivated habit of hiding this, but he also couldn't help but
feel relieved. A part of his mind nagged him, though, and told him that
too much of this would waken the worry for his brothers from its
narcotized slumber.
"I've told other people, just a few. They didn't believe me. You don't
have to. Why don't you think about it for a while?"
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to try to figure out how to find my brothers. I can't go
underground like Davey can. I don't think I can, anyway. I never
have. But Davey's so... *broken*... so small and twisted.
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