"No," he said. "No!" he shouted again, and the stillness was broken. The
wind blew cold and hard, and he didn't care. "*NO!*" he screamed, and
Marci grabbed him and put her hand over his mouth. His ears roared with
echoes, and they did not die down, but rather built atop one another, to
a wall of noise that scared him.
She was crying now, scared and openmouthed sobs. She splashed him and
water went up his nose and stung his eyes. The wind was colder now, cold
enough to hurt, and he took her hand and sloshed recklessly for the
shore. He spun up the flashlight and handed it to her, then yanked his
clothes over his wet skin, glaring at the pool while she did the same.
#
In the winter cave, they met a golem.
It stood like a statue, brick-red with glowing eyes, beside Alan's
mother, hands at its sides. Golems didn't venture to this side of his
father very often, and almost never in daylight. Marci caught him in the
flashlight's beam as they entered the warm humidity of the cave,
shivering in the gusting winds. She fumbled the flashlight and Alan
caught it before it hit the ground.
"It's okay," he said. His chest was heaving from his tantrum, but the
presence of the golem calmed him. You could say or do anything to a
golem, and it couldn't strike back, couldn't answer back. The sons of
the mountain that sheltered -- and birthed? -- the golems owed nothing
to them.
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