Read Online Grand & Humble by Brent Hartinger - Free Book Online

when my husband, Richard, died.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Thank you. My, you’re such a polite young man. Anyway, the night of the funeral, I came home and found him sitting in his favorite chair, just like usual.” She nodded to a black leather wing chair with matching footrest just opposite her. “He was as real as you are.”
    “A ghost?”
    “For lack of a better word. For a long time, I thought I was imagining things. And I knew what other people would say, so I didn’t dare tell anyone. But then Richard started telling me things. Things about other people, things I didn’t know but that turned out to be true.”
    “He could predict the future?”
    She sipped her tea. “Sometimes he sees the future, but mostly he sees the past. But you’d be surprised how, for most people, the past and the future are very much the same thing. Cookie?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Anyway, it seems that in Richard’s past, he had made some rather poor business decisions. He told me about them too, even though by then it was too late to do anything about them. Before long, I was broke, or near enough. I needed to get a job, but suffice it to say that there was not a large demand for a fifty-six-year-old housewife who could not process words. Then, one day, Richard suggested that I become a spiritual reader. He said he could tell me what to say. Of course, my friends were horribly shocked. Then they heard what Richard had to say. They’re all clients now.”
    “What are you saying?” Harlan said. “Richard is still here?”
    “That’s right.”
    “He’s here right now?”
    She nodded, the knowing little smile back on her lips.
    Harlan looked over at the empty wing chair, then sat upright in his own seat.
    Mrs. Swan kept smiling. “People always do that. When I tell them there’s a ghost in the room, they always sit up straighter. As if somehow a ghost would expect them to have better posture.”
    “I…” Harlan didn’t know what to say. Until recently, he had always known what to say.
    “So,” Marilyn Swan said. “How can we help you?”
    “We,” Harlan thought. She had actually said “we.” Was she serious? He looked at her, sipping tea and watching him.
    She was certifiable. Of course she was! He hadn’t known what to expect by coming to a psychic, but it sure wasn’t taking tea with Lady Properly and her dead husband. Maybe it was like what everyone said about hot dogs—that they tasted all right, but you really didn’t want to know how they were made. Well, Harlan had seen inside Mrs. Swan’s slaughterhouse, and now he didn’t want any more of her hot dogs.
    “You know,” he said, standing, “I just rememberedhow much homework I have to do. I really should get going.” He reached for his wallet. “I’ll pay you for your time, of course.”
    Mrs. Swan sat quietly for a moment. Then she looked up at Harlan and said, “Richard wants to know about the party.”
    Harlan froze. “What?”
    “A party. Something happened at a party. He says that’s the reason you’re here.”
    Harlan stared at her. Had he mentioned Jerry’s party when he came in? No, he was certain he hadn’t.
    He looked over at the empty wing chair. Then he put his wallet away and sat back down.
    He took a sip of tea. Finally he said, softly, “It was a Ouija board. It spelled something.” He wasn’t sure where to look—at Mrs. Swan or the wing chair. So he looked down at his feet. Then he told Mrs. Swan what the Ouija board had spelled. H 2 O danger Tub.
    “I’m a swimmer,” he went on. “And I have a swim meet on Wednesday. At Harriet Tubman High School. I think that’s what the Ouija board was talking about.” He looked up at her at last. “What’s going to happen if I go to that swim meet?”
    Mrs. Swan was quiet for a moment; then she nodded, though Harlan wasn’t sure if she was nodding athim or her husband. “As I said, Richard’s forte isn’t necessarily the future. Besides, he usually doesn’t put much