Read Online All That Lives by Melissa Sanders-Self - Free Book Online Page B

help us.
    “Why, Miss Betsy, hello.” When he reached our porch, huffing in his long black coat, and carrying his Bible in his right hand
     folded over his heart, I thought the Reverend was possibly the most comforting sight I had ever witnessed.
    “Hello, Reverend Johnston!” I delivered an enthusiastic greeting to him, and he removed his hat, entering our hall.
    “Reverend Johnston, we are delighted you have come to call. Never have we been more pleased to see a visitor.” Mother shared
     my enthusiasm and grasped the Reverend’s hand in hers.
    “I confess I came this way on purpose for there were rumors of illness here, and yet, I trust you are all well?” He looked
     about, seeming slightly bemused.
    “We are well, and not so well.” Father gave him a firm handshake and it was then I saw the Reverend raise his eyebrows, for
     Father was not known to be so inexact in his responses.
    “How say you, Jack?”
    “Please, join us here for supper and we will tell you all our news.” Mother took the Reverend’s arm and drew him to the table,
     enacting the regular social convention, yet clearly she was not her normal self either.
    “I am happy for the invitation,” the Reverend replied calmly, unaware of anything amiss. I took his coat to hang, and everyone
     got seated at the table while Chloe laid an extra place.
    “We are experiencing unusual events in the evenings at our home,” Father began, coming straight to the point.
    “Is it related to the earth movements we recently discussed?” the Reverend inquired, settling his round bottom in his chair.
    “Perhaps …” Father paused, as if he did not have adequate words to describe our trauma. “Yet, I wonder if these noises are
     earthly.”
    “How say you?” The Reverend smiled and balanced the heel of his hand on the table edge, awaiting Father’s explanation of his
     claim, but it came from Mother, who touched the Reverend’s arm and nodded in my direction.
    “Our Betsy has had her quilts ripped from her bed and her hair pulled and twisted by invisible hands.”
    “Not only that, there is a terrible sound of lips smacking and gulping in the air, yet there is no person there!” Without
     requesting permission to speak I interjected, I so wished to relieve myself of the experience.
    “And there are rodents gnashing their teeth on the bedpost!” Richard added. He was most frightened by the thought of being
     bitten in the dark.
    “You could fill a riverbed with the stones dropped down our stairs,” John Jr. said, for he had spent some part of every day
     carting wheelbarrows of rocks from the front of the house down to the stream.
    “But if you keep the lamps burning it won’t come in the room.” Joel looked across the table at the Reverend with hopeful eyes,
     expecting a man of God would know what to do.
    I could not ascertain what the Reverend was thinking, but he did not immediately volunteer an explanation for our complaints,
     though he did return his hands to his lap.
    “I will happily pass an evening in your good company,” he responded, “and if tonight is convenient, so be it. Mrs. Johnston
     is aware I planned to call on you, and she will assume I have accepted some kind invitation, and that I am not lost to bandits
     on the road, for Adams is blessed this year in having none about.”
    “To be certain I will send my man with a message to your home,” Father reassured him. “We do not wish to worry your good wife.”
    “That would be kind of you indeed, Jack Bell.” The Reverend folded his hands before his empty plate, with no expectation of
     trauma in his expression, despite what he had heard. I was surprised he asked no further questions and the conversation turned
     to how the crops were growing.
    After the meal, Mother and I helped clear the table, and in the kitchen Chloe was bold, touching Mother’s forearm.
    “We done seen your house at night, Miz Lucy. Your double logs do shake and pulse as if it ’tis a livin’