Read Online The Hex Witch of Seldom by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online Page B

face. Something like Pap’s, yet—not like Pap’s exactly. Hazy. She did not want it to become any clearer.
    â€œI’m tired of seeing things,” she said fiercely, aloud, yet more to herself than to the face. The voice, when it answered her, seemed to sound inside her head.
    â€œSeeing things is your gift.”
    She knew him now, though the misty whiteness in the night was no clearer than ever. She knew him because she had heard the voice before, in her dreams. Her father. Wright Yandro. She felt too heartsick to be afraid; and why, anyway, should she be afraid of her own father?
    â€œGo away,” she told him bitterly.
    â€œBut I can be with you, because of your gift! Why won’t you let me?”
    â€œGift, my eye! Look where seeing things has got me. Grandpap—” She couldn’t say any more.
    â€œYou’ve got to understand about Pap. He says hard things sometimes, but he doesn’t mean it. He’s sorry already, though he’d never admit it. He’s so worried he can’t sit down, wondering where you are. He won’t be able to sleep tonight.”
    She found this news gratifying, but she only said, “Serves him right. I’m never going back there.”
    â€œI’m not saying you should! You have to help Shane. I’m the one who sent you to help him, remember? And you have to follow where your gift leads you. Pap never understood about me, either.”
    For the first time she began to wish she could see him more clearly. Her own father. From his photographs she knew the look of his strong-boned face, but—what was he like, really? The white blur in the night told her no more than the newsprint blur had. She could not see its eyes. When it spoke, no mouth moved.
    It said, the words sounding inside her head, “But you have to understand, he loves you just the same.”
    â€œWho you trying to kid!” Suddenly she was furiously angry, and stiffly she struggled to her feet, and for the first time her voice rose. “Loves me, my eye! He can make me cry, but he don’t cry. He can say all sorts of things, but I never heard him say he loves me. And he never—” She could not say it. “Hell!” she shouted to the woods.
    Hell was feeling sure he never would.
    She watched as the white blur, frightened, bobbed away into the night with a crashing of bushes and a soft scuttering of cloven hooves. “Jesus shit,” she said to herself. “I’m loony, all right. I been sitting here talking to a deer’s behind.”
    She wiped her nose with her fingers and sat again, curled up and shivering, trying not to think or see any more.
    She did not expect to sleep, but after a while she did. She lay on her side in the pine needles, and every time she moved any part of her out of the small spot she had warmed, she half woke, and when the side of her not next to the ground grew too cold, she woke up completely and turned over. At first light she stood up and jogged in place and pumped with her arms, trying to come alive. She felt chilly pale, like the dawn sky. She felt empty with an emptiness food would not fill.
    It was almost light enough to see the trail. She stood still and looked around her, and suddenly she felt warm as the colors of sunrise.
    No more than ten paces away stood the black mustang, watching her.
    â€œShane,” she whispered.
    The horse did not move. He stood with his head up, his blue eyes wary.
    â€œShane,” said Bobbi again, this time loudly enough so that he could hear, “Shane, I’ve got to get that halter and lead rope off you before they hang up on something.”
    His blue stare blazed into her, and Bobbi felt an odd, inward fear. She knew Shane would never hurt her. But she felt as if he was scanning her soul.
    She was the one who had put him in the stall.
    â€œShane,” she said with a small catch in her voice, “I know I haven’t earned it, but