Odds Are Good Read Online Free Page B

question faded as he slipped back into his dreams.
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    He was sent away to a school, where he was vaguely miserable but functioned well enough to keep the faculty at a comfortable distance. The other students, not so easily escaped, took some delight in trying to torment the dreamy boy who was so oblivious to their little world of studies and games, their private wars and rages. After a while they gave it up; Jamie didn’t react enough to make their tortures worth the effort on any but the most boring of days.
    He had other things to think about, memories and mysteries that absorbed him and carried him through the year, aware of the world around him only enough to move from one place to another, to answer questions, to keep people away.
    The memories had two sources. The first was the vision that had momentarily dazzled him when he touched the horn, a tantalizing instant of joy so deep and powerful it had shaken him to the roots of his being. Hints of green, of cool, of wind in face and hair whispered at the edges of that vision.
    He longed to experience it again.
    The other memories echoed from his fever dreams, and were not so pleasant. They spoke only of fear, and some terrible loss he did not understand.
    Christmas, when it finally came, was difficult. As the other boys were leaving for home his uncle sent word that urgent business would keep him out of town throughout the holiday. He paid the headmaster handsomely to keep an eye on Jamie and feed him Christmas dinner.
    The boy spent a bleak holiday longing for his father. Until now his obsession with the horn had shielded him from the still-raw pain of that loss. But the sounds and smells of the holiday, the tinkling bells, the warm spices, the temporary but real goodwill surrounding him, all stirred the sorrow inside him, and he wept himself to sleep at night.
    He dreamed. In his dreams his father would reach out to take his hand. “We’re all lost,” he would whisper, as he had the day he died. “Lost, and aching to find our name, so that we can finally go home again.”
    When Jamie woke, his pillow would be soaked with sweat, and tears.
    The sorrow faded with the return of the other students, and the resumption of a daily routine. Even so, it was a relief when three months later his uncle sent word that Jamie would be allowed to come back for the spring holiday.
    The man made a point of letting Jamie know he had hidden the horn by taking him into the study soon after the boy’s arrival at the house. He watched closely as Jamie’s eyes flickered over the walls, searching for the horn, and seemed satisfied at the expression of defeat that twisted his face before he closed in on himself, shutting out the world again.
    But Jamie had become cunning. The defeat he showed his uncle was real. What the man didn’t see, because the boy buried it as soon as he was aware of it, was that the defeat was temporary. For hiding the horn didn’t make any difference. Now that Jamie had touched it, he was bound to it. Wherever it was hidden, he would find it. Its call was too powerful to mistake.
    Even so, Jamie thought he might lose his mind before he got his chance. Day after day his uncle stayed in the house, guarding his treasure. Finally, on the morning of the fifth day, an urgent message pulled him away. Even then the anger that burned in his face as he stormed through the great oak doors, an anger Jamie knew was rooted in being called from his vigil, might have frightened someone less determined.
    The boy didn’t care. He would make his way to the horn while he had the chance.
    He knew where it was, of course—had known from the evening of the first day.
    It was in his uncle’s bedroom.
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    The room was locked. Moving cautiously, Jamie slipped downstairs to the servants’ quarters and stole the master key, then scurried back to the door. To his surprise he felt no fear.
    He decided it was because he had no choice; he was