The sons of the mountain reveled in their dark ignorance, their
separation from the school and from the nonsensical and nonmagical
society of the town. They snared small animals and ate them raw, and
didn't wash their clothes, and grew fierce and guttural through the slow
spring.
Alan kept silent through those months, becoming almost nocturnal,
refusing to talk to any brother who dared to talk to him. When
Ed-Fred-George brought home a note from the vice principal asking when
he thought he'd be coming back to school, Alan shoved it into his mouth
and chewed and chewed and chewed, until the paper was reduced to gruel,
then he spat it by the matted pile of his bedding.
The mountain grumbled and he didn't care. The golems came to parley, and
he turned his back to them. The stalactites crashed to the cave's floor
until it was carpeted in ankle-deep chips of stone, and he waded through
them.
He waited and bided. He waited for Davey to try to come home.
#
"What have we here?" Alan said, as he wandered into Kurt's shop, which
had devolved into joyous bedlam. The shelves had been pushed up against
the wall, clearing a large open space that was lined with long trestle
tables. Crusty-punks, goth kids, hippie kids, geeks with vintage
video-game shirts, and even a couple of older, hard-done-by street
people crowded around the tables, performing a conglomeration of arcane
tasks.
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