Read Online Unwept by Laura Hickman Tracy Hickman - Free Book Online Page A

gratefully not our literary-society building or any of the really fashionable shops. Dr. Carmichael thinks it was an oil lamp that started it. It’s not on the main street, you know, but just off Main. Quite exciting, really … the most exciting thing to happen around here until you came. The church burned down completely.”
    â€œHow dreadful!” Ellis said intently. “Was anyone hurt in the fire?”
    â€œNot that anyone knows of.” Jenny shrugged, then with a secretive smile leaned closer to Ellis as they walked. “Although I did hear someone was missing .”
    Ellis felt a little faint. “Then someone was lost in the fire?”
    â€œNo. No, I’m sure they’ll turn up eventually.” Ellis waved her crippled hand dismissively. “People always do, don’t they? I mean look, you’re here, aren’t you?”
    â€œI don’t follow you, Jenny.”
    â€œCall me Jen. It’s what you used to call me.”
    â€œAnd what did you call me?”
    â€œEllie, sometimes.”
    â€œNow, what does my being here have to do with people turning up?”
    â€œIt just seems like forever since I’ve seen you is all, and here you are.”
    â€œSo who is it that has been missing since the fire? Where have they been?”
    Jenny glanced at Ellis from under her eyelashes, and even before she formed a response Ellis somehow knew it would not be a whole answer. “He couldn’t have been in the fire. I mean he had no reason to be in a building on Main Street, really.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œHe’s just one of us … one of the Nightbirds.”
    â€œThat’s such an odd name,” Ellis sighed. “I wonder if I’ll ever get used to it.”
    â€œOur literary society?” Jenny laughed. “Back when you were here before you used to—oh, sorry. It’s all rather scandalous, actually. Sometimes we break rules and challenge society and are a bit mischievous. Still, being in the burning buildings would not have been part of the game that night, so I’m sure Ely wasn’t there.”
    â€œIs he just out of town, perhaps?”
    â€œI don’t know, really. I’m just sure he’ll be back, though.” Jenny abruptly changed the conversation. “I’m getting it cut, you know.”
    Ellis looked at Jenny’s face. She looked a bit anxious. Ellis supposed that Jenny felt somehow she was breaking the doctor’s rules by discussing the missing person. Maybe it was someone Ellis had known quite well.
    â€œWhat’s his name?” Ellis was not quite ready to release the previous subject.
    â€œIt’s Ely—Elias,” Jenny said. She bit her lip before continuing, “It’d be best not mention this to the others.”
    Ellis smiled. She instinctively knew that the boundaries between her and Jenny were far softer than Jenny was willing to admit.
    Ellis found that she liked the young woman strolling next to her and for Jenny’s sake silenced, for now, all the questions on a continually growing list of things she didn’t know about herself. She was treading blindly through a thick intellectual fog, stumbling over the pebbles of things that felt right, but without true recall. If she could find one familiar thing, perhaps it would all come back and she’d be able to enjoy this little visit and then go home.
    â€œâ€¦ Should I?”
    Ellis brushed aside her thoughts and looked up. Jenny was yanking on a tendril of hair that had escaped from beneath her bonnet near the nape of her neck.
    â€œOh, Jen, it’s so beautiful and long. Don’t. I miss mine; at least I think I do.” Ellis ran her fingers along the strand and tucked it back in place. Jenny awkwardly patted Ellis’s curls that peeked out beneath the cloche.
    â€œNo. We are stopping at the barber’s in town. I’ll get mine bobbed and we’ll look just like sisters.