Read Online Where Bluebirds Fly by Brynn Chapman - Free Book Online Page B

abstinence? Perhaps resulting in a testosterone-fueled psychotic break?”
    “Quit joking!”
    “Who’s joking?”
    “Yes, well that dream -girl was a strangely beautiful shade of lavender, one I’ve never seen before. And she felt…” His cheeks went hot.
    Ram’s mouth dropped. “I’m astounded. Mr. I-have-no-interest-in-women-they-are-all-shallow-and-beneath-me just blushed.”
    Truman squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to watch his reaction. “I felt her pain and fear like a black tsunami, dousing me.” His hands mimed the positions. “And below it, submerged, was a crystal pure feeling, the same I get with ice or snowflakes. Purity, maybe?”
    He was surprised to hear footsteps. He opened his eyes. Now Ram was the one pacing.
    “We have to tell Dr. Kinney at the lab. You have sets of synesthesia going on in there.” He tapped the side of his head.
    Guilt plagued him, for editing. His mind also calculated facial expressions-analyzing them into complex patterns. The human lie detector. Ram would never let him be if he confessed it.  
    I am so not talking about the journal. He’ll have me committed.
    “No. I’m done with all the testing. It’s going nowhere.”
    “Don’t be stupid, what if your gift could help others?”
    “Gift? That’s stretching it a bit. If you fire me, I could get a job as a carny, though. Come one, come all—see the human name-taster!”
    Images filled his head.   He stood alongside the president or prime minister, as they simultaneously requested he assess the personality or intentions of a foreigner standing before them. Or if they were lying. No, thanks.  
    “I’m going out.”
    He flung open the back door, leaving Ram with his mouth gaping again.
    He jogged toward the corn. Entering the rows, the familiar color cut the air, and he felt her presence. His heart swelled, screaming at him to find her.   He barreled to the bridge.
    His mind sped, flight of ideas really. He’d read about Soul Mates —their mythological origins. He thought it all bollocks.
    But what if the perfect person for you, happened to be born in the wrong century? What then?
    “Then this bloody cornfield.”
    It made sense, in a fair, but twisted sort of way.
    Somewhere to his left, music began. Music?
    His heart jack-hammered.  
    Oh, no, oh, no. I am losing it.
    He stopped dead as recognition struck. The music crackled, like his father’s antique Victrola.  
    “I don’t believe it.”  
    Judy Garland was singing. Somewhere over the Rainbow.  
    If any song encapsulated his childhood, his fears—this was it. He’d first heard it at the orphanage, fell in love with her, wanted to step into her world, at the age of six.  
    It was the one part of the song. He couldn’t believe it when he’d heard it. It was if God was answering his prayers, that he wasn’t a freak, wasn’t alone with his oddity.
    If a place existed, where trouble smelled like lemon drops , then surely, that was the place for him.
    He laughed out loud.
    A few years older and wiser, he learned they melted , not smelled .
    He bolted again, Judy’s voice sound-tracking his experience like some 1940’s film. Following him toward the bridge.  
    Toward her, the nameless girl, he’d felt love, overprotection…but now desire wolfed down the other sentiments, consuming him.  
    Somewhere along the way, he’d cut his neck. He swiped it away.  
    The rustling corn, the thunder, the crickets, all faded to nothing. He was consumed with a singular thought.  
    The woman in white. My reader. What is your name?
    * * *
    My boots slide in the snow, gathering on the bridge. Anything, anywhere, must be better than Salem. The sound of the hornets in my head whir in protest. They don’t like freedom, they thrive on pain.
    I hurtle myself to the top, directly at the bridge’s apex.
    I connect, with a hard-cold-wall of blackness. Sparks conjure out of nothing, exploding from my impact.   Multi-colored and beautiful, they fizzle