Read Online Rhubarb by M. H. van Keuren - Free Book Online Page B

exactly the right decision. Not needy, not
expectant. Mature. Employed. “I have to work Bozeman tomorrow.”
    Martin thanked her as she took away the empty plates. Her
home felt different now. Cozy, not cramped, with a bit of the mystique—if one
could use that word in a single-wide—peeled back.
    At the door, she presented him with the leftover pie,
foil-topped and on a dishtowel.
    “I insist,” said Cheryl. “I don’t need to eat the whole
thing. And if Stewart finds it, he will literally dump it in the trash. Take
it. Bring the plate back next time you’re in town. Careful though, it’s still
hot.”
    “Thanks. For dinner, for this. Everything.”
    “Thanks for bringing the wine. That was a treat. And, of
course, the roadside assistance.”
    “No problem,” said Martin.
    On the first step down the porch, he turned and said, “I
feel like I’ve got a second chance here, so I’m going to take it. I’d really
like the chance to get to know you better. I know you’ve got a lot going on,
and I do, too. But who knows? This is Brixton, after all. Weirder things have
happened.”
    She sighed, but it sounded friendly, harmless. He steeled
himself to be rejected again, and resolved to be okay with that.
    “Hold on,” she said, and ducked inside. Martin shifted the
pie on his scorched palms. She returned and set a little scrap of paper on top
of the foil.
    “Call me,” she said. “We’ll see.”
    “Thanks. I will,” said Martin, maneuvering a thumb over the
paper to keep it from blowing away. He crunched down the gravel drive,
surprised with every footfall that his feet were touching the ground.
     
    ~ * * * ~
     
    A few minutes later, as Martin filled a 54-ounce cup with
Diet Mountain Dew out of the fountain at the Herbert’s Corner store, Lorie
appeared, her eyebrows leaping off her forehead.
    “Stewart at bingo. You two alone for almost two hours,” she
said.
    “Oh, no, you don’t,” said Martin. “I was a perfect
gentleman, and that’s all I’m going to say.”
    “Uh-huh,” she replied.
    “Don’t you have some waitressing to do?” he asked, jamming a
big straw through the lid. “Sorry, Lorie, but there may be some things you will
never know.”
    “You go on believing that,” she called after him as he
headed to the register. He turned, threw his arms wide in triumph, and they
both laughed.

Chapter 6
     
     
    “…and paralyzed. I was conscious. I felt several presences
in the room with me. I wanted to scream, to call for my husband, but I couldn’t
make a sound.”
    “That must have been terrifying.”
    “At first, but then I not so much heard as felt a voice in
my head, telling me that everything was going to be all right.”
    “Can you describe the voice?”
    “I remember it being masculine, but also soothing, almost
motherly. I’m not sure that it spoke English, but I understood everything.”
    “Now, you didn’t stay in the room.”
    “All that first part, the lights, the waking, and the
helplessness, was as if I was being prepared to be taken somewhere else. And
then came a very bright light. I couldn’t close my eyes, and I remember the
voice urging me to ignore the pain. It would be over very soon.”
    “Your husband didn’t experience anything?”
    “Nothing. They must have done something to keep him asleep,
or he’s the heaviest sleeper in the world, Lee.”
    “After the bright light, where were you? What did you see?”
    “Someplace very cold, and hard. I felt naked, but I couldn’t
move, couldn’t see my body. There were devices above me, like you might see at
a dentist’s office, but none of them made any sense.”
    “What about the presences? Did you still feel them?”
    “I could. But more concrete, like they were in the room with
me, not like spirit presences anymore. I don’t know how long I laid there until
finally they looked down over me. They had gray skin. No hair. And their eyes
were large, silvery things.”
    “On the video of your session