Read Online A Skeleton in the Family by Leigh Perry - Free Book Online

never known him to pass up a chance to gossip.
    I tried again. “I’ll put on your
Bone Songs
mix disc so we can dance.”
    â€œI’m not in the mood.”
    â€œWe could watch
The Nightmare Before Christmas
.”
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    Passing up music and his favorite movie. “Come on, Sid, I want to talk to you.”
    â€œI told you I’m reading.”
    I bent over to check the crack under the door. “With no light on?”
    â€œAre you worried I’ll ruin my eyes?”
    It was an invasion of his privacy that I knew I’d feel guilty about later, but I tried the doorknob anyway. Alas, it was wasted guilt. Locked. “Unlock the door and come out or else!”
    â€œOr else what?”
    â€œOr else I’m going to get the screwdriver and take the hinges off the door, probably breaking every one of my fingernails in the process and getting half a dozen bruises.”
    â€œYeah? I don’t have much trouble with fingernails and bruises.”
    â€œI’ll never get the door back up by myself, which will mean that you’ll have to hide if Madison comes near the attic, which means that you won’t be able to eavesdrop. And we’ll either have to get Deborah to come fix it, which she won’t make a priority, or wait until my parents get back from sabbatical, or hire somebody I can’t afford to pay. Is your sulk really worth all that trouble?”
    A few seconds passed, but finally Sid unlocked the door and opened it.
    â€œI’m not sulking,” he said. “I’m thinking.” He turned to go back up.
    Now I knew something was wrong. When Sid was in a good mood, all his bones were tightly connected as if still fastened by invisible tendons, but when he was down, the connections were loose, as if it weren’t worth the trouble it took to hold himself together. He occasionally left behind a metatarsal if upset, like when I went to Europe for a month, and the day Deborah announced that she didn’t want to talk to him anymore, he left two finger bones on the couch. This time, as I followed him up, I saw no fewer than a dozen tiny bones left on the stairs. I collected them as I went.
    When I got upstairs, he’d collapsed on the chair, looking more like a pile of bones than he’d been when stuffed into his suitcase. I put the pieces he’d dropped next to him, but he didn’t even bother to put them back into place.
    â€œTalk to me, Sid. Why are you upset?”
    â€œWho said I was upset?”
    â€œCome on, spill your guts.” With his love of straight lines, he should have responded
They’re already spilled
, or maybe
There’s nothing left to spill
. Instead he just shrugged. Given that he’d been acting odd as early as Saturday, I made an educated guess. “Did something happen at the con?”
    â€œNo,” he said in a tone that any parent would have recognized as a lie.
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œNothing happened.”
    I waited him out.
    â€œIt’s something I saw. Some
one
, I mean. I recognized somebody.”
    â€œOkay. Was it one of Mom and Phil’s friends or what?”
    â€œNo. I remember her from before.”
    â€œFrom before what?”
    â€œFrom before I was . . . like this. Georgia, I recognized a woman from when I was alive.”

10
    â€œF rom when you were alive?” I said stupidly. “Are you sure?”
    â€œI think so. Yeah. Only she looked older.”
    â€œThat stands to reason. I mean, you’ve been living with us for thirty years.”
    â€œMaybe I’ve been here that long, but I haven’t been living here. I am dead, you know.”
    â€œMom always says you’re in a different state of consciousness.”
    â€œYeah, the dead kind.”
    â€œWhatever you call it, you’ve been part of this family for that long, so if you remember that woman from before, she would have to be