Coming or going, when Alvin came to a covered bridge spanning a brook so narrow a lazy man could step over it, he knew he was on the road his father and brothers had traveled not long after Alvin himself was born. They left no stream unbridged in those days, as a kind of vengeance on the Hatrack, which had served the Unmaker by taking the life of the family’s oldest boy, Vigor. “You seem to be touching that bridge like a half-forgotten friend,” said a man’s voice. Alvin turned and saw him then, resting his back against the trunk of a tree with his feet in the cold water of the stream. It wasn’t often a body could sneak up on Alvin. But since he was sitting still I suppose he wasn’t sneaking. He was as still as if he had grown like moss on that tree. Alvin could ordinarily sense folks, especially White folks, who didn’t often blend in proper with the living things around them. But this man did. Or rather, it’s more like he didn’t exist at all, for all Alvin had noticed of him till he spoke.
