Re: dock: atticus and mal
He smiled a little, though the idea held a weird kind of weight in Repose that it wouldn't anywhere else. "There may be any number hovering around, waiting for a ritual. It's a reasonable precaution to take."
Mal made a faint sound of - what was it, approval? Appreciation? - when Atticus drew an image of splintered sounds stitched into sentences over radio waves. It was weird, but it was the kind of weird he'd had his hands on before. He could almost hear the sounds of the dead men, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. "You've met them," he said. "Over the radio, you've met ghosts speaking in tongues." He didn't doubt the possibility.
"Family name," he said. "Old-fashioned rather than pious. Someone a long time ago was pious, I suppose, which is how it became a family name in the first place. In the bible I think it's good tidings, but it does have 'mal' in it, so take the latin meaning or the biblical and decide whether it's 'messenger' or bad news." He rocked back against his hand. "I don't read much, but I do know that one. A man of principals, right? Who does the right thing, even when it's difficult."
The riposte lightened his mood a little. He smiled. "You're right. I shouldn't. I lived over there for a few years when I was in high school." He gestured to the house on the other side of the lake - the dark mansion with dark windows, not a single light, even over the patio or the porch. "I haven't been back to that house in a long time." He looked at Atticus through his fringe. "I was just thinking. Like you were on your boat, but with less music."