The Town by Bentley Little Read Free Book Online

from kindergarten.
    Julia hung up reluctantly. The house seemed even darker after she finished talking to her friend, and though both Gregory’s mother and Sasha were in their bedrooms, the house felt deserted. A lone shaft of faded sunlight fell on the half-finished afghan, and for some reason the sight made the skin prickle on her arms.
    Spooky.
    Outside, she thought she saw a small shadow dart past the front window. Teo, probably. Gregory and the kids must be home. Grateful that the others had returned, she walked to the window and looked out, but the drive was still empty and there was no sign of the van out on the street.
    In the kitchen, the Rippingtons tape was playing, but the house still seemed far too quiet, and she considered going upstairs and waking Sasha to tell her that she had to help with some of the housework, had to help clean up.
    She didn’t want to be alone.
    Stupid. She was being stupid again. The unease she felt had nothing to do with the house itself; it was just a by-product of culture shock, a perfectly ordinary psychological response. There was nothing scary here, nothing frightening, nothing out of the ordinary.
    But she could not assuage her fears with logic. They were feelings more than thoughts, not subject to the arguments of rationality, and she wished that her mother-in-law would wake up or that Sasha would come downstairs.
    She thought of that small shadow passing by the window.
    Jedushka Di Muvedushka.
    As embarrassed as she was to admit it, her mother-in-law’s consternation over not inviting the Owner of the House had also affected her. It was ignorant, Julia knew, and she shouldn’t let herself get sucked back up into that sort of superstitious claptrap, but as logical and modern and freethinking as she tried to be, somewhere deep within her she still retained a seed of belief. She wasn’t that familiar with this particular legend, but she knew that Jedushka Di Muvedushka was supposed to protect them. He was the guardian of the family against whatever supernatural entities might want to infiltrate and interfere with their lives.
    Gregory’s mother had been visibly upset ever since she’d discovered they had not invited the Owner of the House, and that might also account for some of her irritability. Ever since they’d come to McGuane, she’d been praying and discussing God even more than usual, and while she no doubt found such talk reassuring, to Julia it was annoying and slightly disconcerting. All this emphasis on the unseen world, on the supernatural, the religious, made her uncomfortable. It also kept such thoughts in the forefront of her mind, and, as ludicrous as it might be, she had to admit that she would be feeling better if they had invited the Owner of the House, if they had some built-in protection against ghosts and demons and . . . whatever was out there.
    There was a crash from the kitchen, the sound of dishes shattering, and Julia jumped, her heart lurching in her chest. Catching her breath, she hurried to the doorway, expecting, hoping to see that her mother-in-law had knocked over one of the boxes of dishes that had not yet been unpacked.
    There was an overturned box on the floor. And the linoleum was covered with broken china and broken glass.
    But there was no one else around.
    A chill passed through her. She scanned the shadowy kitchen, eyed the closed, dead-bolted door that led outside, saw nothing out of the ordinary.
    “Julia!” Gregory’s mother called from her bedroom. “Everything is all right?”
    “It’s fine!” she called back, grateful to hear another voice.
    She walked into the kitchen, bent down, and righted the box. Quite a few dishes were still inside, and many of them, thankfully, appeared to be intact. She must’ve put the box on the counter next to the refrigerator and it had just fallen off.
    No. She distinctly remembered setting it on the table in the breakfast nook—on the other side of the room.
    That was impossible.
    She