Bone River by Megan Chance Read Free Book Online Page B

it
was
rather like that. I felt I had to reassure her I was here and would remain so.
Soon
, I kept promising.
Soon.
Because there was no time for real study. Drawing the relics took days. Then butter had to be made before the cream soured, and soap, and the garden had to be cleaned out before the weather turned completely. And there was always someone else here too. Every day brought men out to look at her. Sydney Dawes and Adam Leach had done their work well, and Junius had been right when he predicted the barn would turn into a curiosity museum. Much of the time, Junius was so busy showing her off that I had to be the one to go out to the whacks to harvest the oysters with Lord Tom. When I complained of it, Junius said, “You show her then, sweetheart. God knows I’d be happy for you to.”
    But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand the thought of answering their stupid questions or watching them look at her as if she were an oddity like a monkey-faced Fiji mermaid or a two-headed snake. It made me nervous, too, so many come out to see her. Baird was certain to hear of her now. Someone would talk, and it would get to some newspaper, and then to him. And once he asked for her, what would keep Junius from sending her away? Itwasn’t as if I’d kept my end of the bargain. I hadn’t gotten him the canoe. But if I couldn’t find the time to study the mummy, I surely couldn’t find it to get to Bruceport and talk to Bibi.
    It didn’t help that the dream invaded not just my waking hours, but my sleep, too—not every night, but enough that I came to dread it. It no longer brought horror and panic, but a nausea that was sometimes so bad it was all I could do not to bolt for the chamber pot, to lie still until the feeling passed. I never woke Junius, and I don’t think he noticed my restlessness. I said nothing to Lord Tom, though I saw the way he watched me, as if he were searching for something. He knew me better than anyone alive—even Junius—so well that sometimes I thought he must be reading my mind. But Lord Tom didn’t question me, and I was grateful for it. I kept thinking,
If I could just get to her, if I could just study her, this would all go away and I would have my life back again
. I would be myself again.
    Though really, how was I
not
myself? It was just...that anxiety from the dream seemed to inhabit me. That
waiting
I’d felt since the night of the storm. I was aware of every moment passing, and myself growing older within it, everything I’d ever wanted stretching farther out of reach—but that was so strange, because what did I want that I didn’t already have? Beyond children, of course, but...some things you just had to live without. Still, that anxiety pushed and pushed and it didn’t matter how I pushed back; it didn’t go away.
    It was two weeks before I managed to find the time for study again, and only then because Lord Tom and I returned from the whacks earlier than usual. It was still early afternoon, and if there were no oglers, I would have hours with her. When I saw no strange canoes or plungers pulled ashore, I could barely temper my excitement.
    I left Lord Tom to tend the canoe and hurried over the hillocks of marsh grass and the shallow little mud flats betweenthem to the path of crushed oyster shells that led past the worn gray pickets of the fence. Wild rose twined about the gate, mostly bare, a few yellow and brown mottled leaves, full, plump hips, the little thorns grabbing at my sleeve as I passed. I meant to go past the house and straight to the barn, when there was a movement on the porch, and I looked up to see a man sitting on the steps.
    Another one of Junius’s gawkers. My hopes died; my disappointment and anger were so overwhelming I felt the sudden press of tears. He stood when he saw me, brushing his hands against the faded gray cloth of the coat he wore; it looked old enough to be from the War, though I wondered if he had been the original owner—he looked to be