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    Max and the Ghost
    Max and the Ghost
    Max and the Ghost
    Ebook55 pages49 minutes

    Max and the Ghost

    By E. P. Beaumont

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    About this ebook

    Sixteen-year-old Max is growing up in a dangerous world full of magic and murder, but his immediate worry is how much of his real self to reveal to his immigrant parents. Max's brother Anton is doing the family proud by making a success of himself in America. He just got a deal on a fancy riverfront condo, but the apartment comes with some unadvertised features. When Anton offers Max a job to keep him away from his questionable friends, more than one secret will come to light.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherE. P. Beaumont
    Release dateOct 1, 2012
    ISBN9781938832055
    Max and the Ghost
    Author

    E. P. Beaumont

    E. P. Beaumont writes novels and stories that explore the turbulent boundary between the fantastic and the historical. Depending on whim of the Muse and prevailing winds, that can mean urban fantasy, magic realism, historical fiction, steampunk, science fiction, or literary fiction.

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      Book preview

      Max and the Ghost - E. P. Beaumont

      Max and the Ghost

      By E. P. Beaumont

      Copyright 2012 E. P. Beaumont

      Smashwords edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Chapter One: Anton gets a deal

      The sun glittered on the Mississippi River, washed the old Stone Arch railroad bridge in golden light, and lit the riverbank foliage to lamps. Radiance caught in the topmost treetops and Anton swept all of it up and claimed it in a single gesture.

      I got a deal, he said, grinning so that his American gold tooth flashed. That gold crown had replaced the steel one, that in turn had replaced the molar knocked out in a scuffle in a schoolyard back in Russia before Max was even born.

      A bargain, Anton said with a wink. Not to worry, I got a deal.

      Anton’s condominium apartment was five floors up, with a fine view of the mill ruins and the old bridge and the falls, a real prime location facing the river. Max found the transparent wall of the living room unnerving. The world ended just beyond the white area rugs and the duck prints on brick walls to either side. He peered over the edge. In the mellow light of late afternoon, he could see the wandering figures of sad people who disappeared into the trees at the edge of the river bluffs. That’s where they found the bodies from time to time, the whispers said at school. The news said nothing, not about the homeless people nor the witch-burnings nor the various threats that had set curfew at full darkness.

      He turned his back on the windows and looked instead at the painting opposite, birch trees flourishing the gold of autumn against a bright blue sky.

      Mama and papa craned in awe at the fourteen-foot ceilings. Anton pointed out the broad planked floors, cut from the heartwood of old-growth forests, planed back down to bare wood and sealed with satiny varnish. From the glances exchanged by Anton and Varya, Max understood that there had been a set-to between the two of them about the decoration. Compared to what Varya reported of the taste of the very rich, Anton’s taste in art was still vulgarly middle-class.

      Varya had taste, one of many reasons Anton had married her.

      Varya smiled as Anton showed his parents and his brothers from room to room. Max stayed behind. He felt crowded and oppressed and short of breath around Anton, who shouldered out the sun and made the clouds disappear behind his bulk, a skyscraper of a man with steel teeth. Even though the steel tooth had been replaced by the gold crown just as soon as Anton had a job with dental benefits, Max still thought of his brother’s metal teeth chewing up the landscape like earth-moving equipment.

      In the outskirts of the Minneapolis suburbs, Yuri worked construction, plowing the old farmlands into walled enclaves of mansions. There were similar gated enclosures going up outside the Russian cities, the grownups said.

      Fedor elbowed Max, and dragged him into the kitchen to hear Varya continue the tour: the cabinets, and the granite-topped counters, and the island in the middle, where culinary wonders could be worked. It was a chef’s kitchen, though as far as Max could tell neither Anton nor Varya cooked at home. They ate take-out in between their appointments with real-estate clients.

      As Yuri looked at the walls, and the view over the river, a slight frown disturbed his massive and cherubic features. That ripple of envy followed Anton and Varya like the wake of a motorboat. Yuri’s eyes tracked Varya

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