“It was wrong to bring her here, Adam,” Billy said to him in the morning, as he fed Alan the crusts of bread and dried apples he’d brought him, packing his hand with fresh snow.
“I didn’t bring her here, she followed me,” Adam said. His arm ached from holding it aloft, and his back and tailbone were numb with the ache of a night spent sitting up against their mother’s side. “And besides, why should it be wrong? Whose rules? What rules? What are the fucking rules?”
“You can feel the rules, brother,” he said. He couldn’t look Alan in the eye, he never did. This was a major speech, coming from Bobby.
“I can’t feel any rules,” Alan said. He wondered if it was true. He’d never told anyone about the family before. Had he known all along that he shouldn’t do this?
“I can. She can’t know. No one can know. Even we can’t know. We’ll never understand it.”
“Where is Davey?”
“He’s doing a… ritual. With your thumb.”
They sat silent and strained their ears to hear the winds and the distant shuffle of the denizens of the mountain.
Alan shifted, using his good hand to prop himself up, looking for a comfortable position. He brought his injured hand down to his lap and unwrapped his blood-soaked T-shirt from his fist, gently peeling it away from the glue of dried blood that held it there.