Read Online The Watchers by Mark Andrew Olsen - Free Book Online Page B

minutes.”
    â€œYou’ve got one .”
    Gladys now seemed to search the ceiling tiles for inspiration. “Kathy, I know what you’re afraid of. I promise you that I’m going to help this poor girl, not hurt her.”
    â€œBut you two are talking nonsense. You sound like a couple of girls fantasizing about fairies and pixie dust. Thirty seconds . . .”
    Gladys reached out and touched Kathy’s forearm, briefly, tentatively, then retreated like someone struck by an electric shock. “How many times have you and I sat in the lounge and whispered stories to each other about the mysteries of life and death we’ve seen in this place? Do you remember the elderly woman just last week, who popped up in Trauma Three after having been declared dead an hour before? Do you remember the things she said?”
    â€œYes, but . . .”
    â€œAnd what about the blind girl who flatlined on the operating table and came back telling you the color of your hair and the number of dust bunnies on the top of the OR supply cabinet and a whole host of things she had no way of seeing?”
    â€œThat’s different.”
    â€œNo, it’s not, Kathy. This is one of those things. It’s something I’ll be glad to tell you about someday, when we’re truly in a safe place. But you’ve got to trust me. This is something I know about very personally. It’s part of my past. Part of my family.”
    Kathy glanced about her with an exasperated look. “Okay,” she said at last. “You have five minutes. After that, I can’t protect you. Everyone knows you don’t work this floor. The other girls will be by—”
    â€œI know,” Gladys interrupted. “I’ll hurry.”
    She turned back to Abby, reached out and grazed her forearm tenderly. “Does this mean I’m dying?” Abby asked. “Right now, I mean? Is that why I’m seeing them? Have they come for me?”
    â€œOh no, Sister,” Gladys said. “You may be in bad shape, but this right here ain’t about dying at all. I got it when I was eighteen, and my momma when she was twenty-two. Momma’s still alive, and Lord willing, I should be around a long time, if my children don’t put me in the grave themselves.”
    She leaned forward almost into Abby’s face now, and her voice refashioned into a fierce whisper.
    â€œYou’ve been seeing the other kind too, haven’t you? The evil ones?”
    Abby nodded, unable to speak a reply.
    â€œHow long has this been happening?”
    The young girl swallowed hard and blinked her tears away. “Just a few weeks. It started right before all this.”
    â€œAnd did it all start with a dream?”
    â€œYes!” said Abby. “A dream about an—”
    â€œAn old woman at the Temple.”
    â€œThat’s right. How in the world. . . ?”
    The nurse’s grip on Abby’s forearm tightened. “My Suzette was right. She read your blog—along with half the sisters in town, apparently. She recognized your dream from the stories I used to tell her as a young girl. She doesn’t have the gift herself, but she remembered. And she was right on the money—you got the Sight.”
    â€œThe what?”
    â€œThe Sight is just a gifting from the Lord, honey. It manifests in young women every generation or so. I heard of it stretching back all the way to plantation days, in my family and two of the others in my church. It isn’t spoken of much. More of a myth these days, one of those shivers-down-your-back kind of stories that women tell each other when the men are out of earshot. Tell me something. Do you love the Lord?”
    â€œWell, yeah . . .”
    â€œNo, I don’t mean some namby-pamby twice-a-year pew-warmer. I mean, are you on fire for Jesus?”
    Abby smiled at the old woman’s vivacity.
    â€œHow do I prove that to you?”
    The older woman’s eyes