The Hummingbirds by Ross McMeekin

Author:Ross McMeekin [McMeekin, Ross]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510728776
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2018-01-19T05:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

By morning the bliss of the night before had faded into a surreal anxiety. The further into the city Sybil drove, the more the sun seemed to glare. She palmed the wheel and guided her convertible into the parking lot of the offices of her agent.

She didn’t know what to make of what little Ezra had managed to tell about his mother’s self-immolation, and she hadn’t the heart to push him for details of the event itself. But she did ask how it had affected him all of these years. Instead of answering, he began speculating about why his mother had done it. She felt trapped. Ashamed. Cursed. She was tired of hiding—so many years of being the Prophetess had worn on her. She wanted the world to know her pain. She wanted the world to know her. So she tried to tell them, the only way she felt she could.

In short, he’d divulged what little he could bear to—and it was far more than she had a right to expect. For that, she was grateful. More and more, this insane trip seemed to make sense for them both—they could get away and talk through all of this shit, carry each other’s burdens, and maybe come out from it less fearful and inhibited.

She’d bought the plane tickets. One way. The feel of clicking the purchase tab was both thrilling and heavy. The earliest reasonably direct flight would leave in three days, which felt like an eternity to wait, though she realized it was still nowhere near enough time to tie up loose ends and pack. But when you made a decision like this, the last thing you wanted was more time to stew, because there was always something pulling you back to where you were before. People who ask why nothing ever changes, she thought, don’t recognize the power of the familiar. So quiet, so subtle, yet always coercing you back to where it started.

She’d had a stress dream the previous night, a variation of one she’d had many times, before big auditions, meetings, premieres. In the dream, she soared high above the coastline, arms like wings, wind stiff and hot and dusty against her belly and face, making her eyes and mouth parched. She was up north in wine country, following the coastal highway south along the water. Acres of parched canyons flanked her left side, their folds peppered with vineyards and the occasional pathetic tree, slouching up from the ground like a knobby finger. The whole of it threatening to burn.

But to her right swirled the ocean, an impossible richness of water for thousands of miles, getting deeper every day with each melting glacier. Every shade of blue and green, waves curling around points, lines of swell appearing out of the deep, kelp out past the breakers, seals bobbling, humpbacks slapping their tails.

That the desert and the ocean could be so near each other, so close, touching even, yet never really mix—it made almost no sense.

She soared over

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.