The Clairvoyants by Karen Brown

Author:Karen Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

22

That afternoon in August, the summer David Pinney died, I watched him walk across the lawn to the barn, the dry grass flattened under his feet, and I pulled myself out of the pool and followed him. I had often gone into the barn to be alone. It had been three years since my grandfather died, and my sisters were afraid of the place, but to me the barn, with its strips of sunlight and its stone floor, was reassuring and cool. I would sit in the little area where I once saw Sister Martha Mary, near my grandfather’s workshop that smelled of milled copper. There was stacked hay for the sheep he’d raised once, the few cows that would get loose on the golf course, old Bonnie, the mare with her large head and frightening whinny. I’d sit on the bale of hay, draw my legs to my chest. The hay was rough and stuck to my bare skin.

Usually, I sat in the barn and waited for something. I expected to see my grandfather, busy at his bench once again, the sparks from the mill flying out onto the stone floor, his pants loose on his bony hips. I sat on the bale of hay waiting, much as Sister had once waited for me. Now I entered, looking for David Pinney. Up in the barn’s rafters, swallows flitted. I didn’t see him at first, and then he stepped out of the shadows. I felt a small misgiving, but I ignored it.

I showed him the old lightning rods, the coiled cable shining like a new penny. I told him how the rods worked, how the cable, buried in the ground, drew the strike away from the highest points of a church, or a barn, or a peak in a roof. The sun came in and out, blinking through the old barn’s slats.

“People were afraid of lightning,” I told him. “Once, they thought it was sent by the Prince of the Power of the Air.”

“And who would that be?” he said.

“Satan, you know.” I picked up one of the rods. “They called this the ‘heretical rod.’ They didn’t think it was right to try to control something that came from God.”

He took the rod from my hand, hefted it, and then set it down. “These must be an easy sell.”

“People aren’t really afraid anymore,” I said.

“They don’t believe in the devil so much?” he said.

Water from his damp hair ran down his shoulder.

“Playing to people’s fears, that’s sort of like that church you go to,” he said.

“I don’t go to that church,” I said.

He looked at the ceiling and the scattering birds, and he laughed. He moved closer to me, and his wet shorts dripped onto my feet. I felt the closeness of his bare skin.

“But you believe in all of that,” he said. “Ghosts and messages.”

I wanted to correct him, but I knew I would only give him more reason to make fun of me. He made a low, wailing sound.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.