When the Night Comes Read Online Free Page A

was excellent.”
    There was a plate of biscuits on the table. Scotch finger. My brother was looking at them. I don’t know where they came from. We didn’t have any biscuits that morning.
    I put my hand in my pocket, felt the change that was there. I pulled it out. One bill and a few coins. I walked over and put it on the table near Mum. I could feel the man looking at me.
    â€œSay hello,” Mum said.
    â€œHello.”
    â€œHello, Isla,” the man said.
    I don’t know how he knew my name or how he knew Mum, but when he sat down again, I tried not to look at him, but I did look at him, at his face, and his eyes were gray-blue like the sea.

THE WALNUT TREE
    O ut in the garden, I showed Bo the walnut tree. He smoked a cigarette.
    â€œI like walnuts,” he said. “I like to eat them when I walk.”
    I thought about how my brother and I would use a rock to smash the walnuts open against the concrete steps at the back of the house and the pieces of nut would shatter and mix with the shell if you hit them too hard with the rock.
    â€œHow do you open them?” I asked.
    â€œAh,” he said, and he held one in his hand. “It is very simple. See how one side, this pointy side, is all closed up?”
    I nodded. The pointy side was sealed very tightly.
    â€œBut here on the other side, the round side, there is this spongy bit where the walnut hangs on the tree.”
    I could see it. A dark vein between the two halves of the walnut shell.
    â€œLike a skull,” I said.
    â€œYes,” he said. “A little skull.”
    He got a pocketknife out from his jeans. Shiny silver—stainless steel.
    â€œMy father gave me this knife,” he said, “a long time ago,” and he pulled the sharp blade out from its tight hiding space. He held the walnut in one hand and pushed the knife into the soft cork vein with ease. Thenhe twisted the blade. There was a cracking sound, the nut opening—two halves there in his hand.
    He held up the open half. “A little brain,” he said.
    The nut sat in one half of its shell in one whole piece, unbroken—complete. He took the nut out and gave it to me and I chewed up the warm taste. The creamy flesh tinged with the acid of the thin walnut skin, and together those tastes were delicious.
    â€œI think we cannot be stopping now,” he said, already cracking open another nut and eating it whole.
    â€œWhen I was at school, I used to steal walnuts from my neighbor. He had three big trees in a row. He was an old man called Emil. Maybe he was crazy, I don’t know. I never saw him collect any of the nuts, but it was wrong to take them. I knew that. I’d eat them on the way to school, using this knife. I couldn’t stop eating them once I started.”
    Bo passed his knife to me.
    â€œYou try,” he said.
    I picked up a walnut and held it in the palm of my hand. The knife felt heavy and warm and I slid the blade in carefully, the way Bo had shown me. I twisted the knife, my whole wrist turning with it, and there was a crack, the shell came apart. The two halves were perfect, but the inside of the shell was dark. It was empty.
    There was nothing there.
    I looked at the space where the nut should have been. I turned my head and looked up at Bo.
    â€œOh,” he said, and he took the shell out of my hands, inspected it closely. “The fairies ate that one.”
    He handed me back the two halves of the shell.
    â€œYou should keep it,” he said. “Good luck.” He winked at me.
    I looked at the shell again. I didn’t know if it was true or not, if a shell could be good luck, but I put it in my pocket anyway. I kept it.
    The next one I tried had a nut inside, but it split in half with the shell. It looked like a little heart. A skull with a little heart inside.
    â€œWalnuts are very good for you,” Bo said. “Very good.”
    He smiled and cracked open another. We sat there and ate