Read Online The Peculiar Night of the Blue Heart by Lauren DeStefano - Free Book Online

Halloween.”
    Lionel was skeptical. Until last night he had been sure that the blue creature had been an animal, maybe even afox. But Marybeth was right: a fox couldn’t climb under her skin.
    â€œThe book said that the ghosts don’t know they’re dead until they’re shown.”
    â€œHow do you show a dead thing that it’s dead?” Lionel asked.
    â€œThe man had a spirit that would wander his house every Halloween, and one year, he lured it to a graveyard and showed it to its headstone.”
    Lionel hoped it could be as simple as that. “There’s a graveyard just before we reach town,” he said.
    â€œI’ve been thinking,” Marybeth said. “If we behave very well this week, and you don’t growl and I don’t wander off, by Saturday Mrs. Mannerd will trust us by ourselves again. We’ll tell her that we’re walking into town to return our library books. But along the way, we can stop by the graveyard. If it is a ghost, maybe we can convince it that it’s dead, and it will go back to where it belongs.”
    Lionel hoped for Marybeth’s sake that she was right. But whether it was a ghost or not, the blue creature still behaved like an animal, and Lionel would do his best to tame it. At least until Saturday, so that Mrs. Mannerd would let them walk to the library.

    All week, the quiet made Mrs. Mannerd nervous. The older ones quarreled and quibbled as usual, but Marybeth and Lionel were eerily demure. Sometimes Lionel would bare his teeth at the other children when they came too close, but Marybeth would whisper to him and he would be a boy again.
    But as difficult as it was for Lionel to behave like a human (and a civilized one at that), it was becoming even more difficult for Marybeth to hide the blue creature.
    Nobody in the house paid Marybeth much mind, and so they didn’t see the way her pupils dilated when a gust of autumn wind rattled the walls. They didn’t notice when she darted under the stairs to hide when the paperboy rang the doorbell to collect on the bill.
    The nights were always the true challenge, though. After everyone else had gone to sleep, Lionel curled up outside her door, so that she would step on him if she tried to wander off.
    As long as Lionel was outside the door, Marybeth did not wander, though. She heard his gentle raspy breathing as he slept, and the blue creature heard it, too, and seemed to be calmed by it.
    But while her body didn’t wander, her mind did. She had dreams of a little boy she’d never met. In her dreams, he led her to peculiar places. Sometimes it was a well. Sometimes it was a cave, or a river, or a cliff. “Look,” hewould say. “There’s something that I want to show you.” But something was warning her not to trust him. The heart beside her own would beat faster, and she would wake up in a panic. After she awoke, when she tried to remember the boy’s face, all she saw was a blue button face without eyes.
    By Saturday morning, Mrs. Mannerd was very suspicious, especially at breakfast, when Lionel ate his porridge with a spoon rather than lapping it up with his tongue.
    After the bowls had been cleared, Lionel and Marybeth remained at the table with perfect posture and their hands clasped together.
    â€œWell?” Mrs. Mannerd said. “Aren’t you going to go outside and play?”
    Marybeth and Lionel exchanged glances.
    â€œActually,” Marybeth said. “We’d like to walk to the library.”
    â€œThe library?” Mrs. Mannerd said. “I could have sworn your books weren’t due back until Tuesday.”
    â€œWe’ve finished them, and we’d like to check out something new,” Marybeth said.
    Mrs. Mannerd hesitated. All week there had been something strange in Marybeth’s demeanor. Sometimes, in certain lights, Mrs. Mannerd could believe that Marybeth’s eyes turned blue. And Lionel had kept very close