Read Ray Bradbury Stories, Volume 1 for Free Online

padding of feet, the welcoming bursts of talk at the entrances, the transparent rattlings of casements, the shadows passing, coming, going, wavering.
    ‘Well, well, and this must be Timothy!’
    ‘What?’
    A chilly hand took his hand. A long hairy face leaned down over him. ‘A good lad, a fine lad,’ said the stranger.
    ‘Timothy,’ said his mother. ‘This is Uncle Jason.’
    ‘Hello, Uncle Jason.’
    ‘And over here—’ Mother drifted Uncle Jason away. Uncle Jason peered back at Timothy over his caped shoulder, and winked.
    Timothy stood alone.
    From off a thousand miles in the candled darkness, he heard a high fluting voice; that was Ellen. ‘And my brothers, they are clever. Can you guess their occupations, Aunt Morgiana?’
    ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘They operate the undertaking establishment in town.’
    ‘What!’ A gasp.
    ‘Yes!’ Shrill laughter. ‘Isn’t that priceless!’
    Timothy stood very still.
    A pause in the laughter. ‘They bring home sustenance for Mama, Papa and all of us,’ said Laura. ‘Except, of course, Timothy…’
    An uneasy silence. Uncle Jason’s voice demanded. ‘Well? Come now. What about Timothy?’
    ‘Oh, Laura, your tongue,’ said Mother.
    Laura went on with it, Timothy shut his eyes. ‘Timothy doesn’t—well—doesn’t like blood. He’s delicate.’
    ‘He’ll learn,’ said Mother. ‘He’ll learn,’ she said very firmly. ‘He’s my son, and he’ll learn. He’s only fourteen.’
    ‘But I was raised on the stuff,’ said Uncle Jason, his voice passing from one room on into another. The wind played the trees outside like harps. A little rain spatted on the windows—‘raised on the stuff,’ passing away into faintness.
    Timothy bit his lips and opened his eyes.
    ‘Well, it was all my fault.’ Mother was showing them into the kitchen now. ‘I tried forcing him. You can’t force children, you only make them sick, and then they never get a taste for things. Look at Bion, now, he was thirteen before he…’
    ‘I understand,’ murmured Uncle Jason. ‘Timothy will come around.’
    ‘I’m sure he will,’ said Mother, defiantly.
    Candle flames quivered as shadows crossed and recrossed the dozen musty rooms. Timothy was cold. He smelled the hot tallow in his nostrils and instinctively he grabbed at a candle and walked with it around and about the house, pretending to straighten the crape.
    ‘ Timothy ,’ someone whispered behind a patterned wall, hissing and sizzling and sighing the words, ‘ Timothy is afraid of the dark .’
    Leonard’s voice. Hateful Leonard!
    ‘I like the candle, that’s all,’ said Timothy in a reproachful whisper.
    More lightning, more thunder. Cascades of roaring laughter. Bangings and clickings and shouts and rustles of clothing. Clammy fog swept through the front door. Out of the fog, settling his wings, stalked a tall man.
    ‘Uncle Einar!’
    Timothy propelled himself on his thin legs, straight through the fog, under the green webbing shadows. He threw himself across Einar’s arms. Einar lifted him.
    ‘You’ve wings, Timothy!’ He tossed the boy light as thistles. ‘Wings, Timothy: fly!’ Faces wheeled under. Darkness rotated. The house blew away. Timothy felt breezelike. He flapped his arms. Einar’s fingers caught and threw him once more to the ceiling. The ceiling rushed down like a charred wall. ‘Fly, Timothy!’ shouted Einar, loud and deep. ‘Fly with wings! Wings!’
    He felt an exquisite ecstasy in his shoulder blades, as if roots grew, burst to explode and blossom into new, moist membrane. He babbled wild stuff; again Einar hurled him high.
    The autumn wind broke in a tide on the house, rain crashed down, shaking the beams, causing chandeliers to tilt their enraged candle lights. And the one hundred relatives peered out from every black, enchanted room, circling inward, all shapes and sizes, to where Einar balanced the child like a baton in the roaring spaces.
    ‘Enough!’ shouted Einar, at