"From the family. And your father." A little of column A, a little of column B. Don't you have a boy about their age? When he was a child, Jude had not considered himself one; by his own observations, he and his sister did not meet the criteria. To be a child, one had to spend their time being a child, and being regarded as one, and Jude was always - something else. Still, he'd heard of Near Farr, off at some boarding school, or summer getaway, or weekend excursion. Never home when, the family came to play.
If he caught the sarcasm, Jude once more opted for disregard. Acknowledging things, he knew, could often make them worse. "Have you ever had a really bad nightmare? One that you thought was so real, that when you woke up, you weren't sure you were awake?" It was all a set-up for a melodramatic ghost story - the storm, the forest, the empty house, the stranger. Horror novels had made the frightening seem quaint by making them predictable and familiar. Near could almost laugh. But beneath the cliche and absurdity, there was the thread of truth that made people write those horror novels in the first place: the eeriness of the other, the mercilessness of nature, the mysteries of the dark. Was Jude a joke?
Or was he a nightmare?
If he caught the sarcasm, Jude once more opted for disregard. Acknowledging things, he knew, could often make them worse. "Have you ever had a really bad nightmare? One that you thought was so real, that when you woke up, you weren't sure you were awake?" It was all a set-up for a melodramatic ghost story - the storm, the forest, the empty house, the stranger. Horror novels had made the frightening seem quaint by making them predictable and familiar. Near could almost laugh. But beneath the cliche and absurdity, there was the thread of truth that made people write those horror novels in the first place: the eeriness of the other, the mercilessness of nature, the mysteries of the dark. Was Jude a joke?
Or was he a nightmare?