Fire Will Fall by Carol Plum-Ucci Read Free Book Online

discomforts that had cost her the light in her eyes.
    "That's Patience Kellerton," Mrs. Starn said. "The matriarch. Mother of thirteen children, though she'd lost several at the time this portrait was painted."
    I stared at the picture, memories stirring.
    "When I was in fifth grade, my class took a field trip here for the house and grounds history tour," I said. I remembered that portrait. "Mrs. Kellerton's eyes follow you all around the room. That got a lot of kids asking questions about the Kellerton children, the ghost stories."
    Mrs. Starn smiled and cleared her throat. "I wondered how much time would pass before one of you four asked about those morbid tales."
    I pooh-poohed the subject. "I didn't even remember them until this morning. We've got too much reality haunting us. If any of us saw a ghost, we would laugh ... tell it to go find someone who scared easily."
    "I'm a historian, and hence, I like accuracy. So many students asked about the six dead Kellerton children on field trips here that the tour guides were equipped with answers. The first is, 'To lose that many offspring in the eighteen hundreds, when you'd given birth to thirteen, was unfortunate but not highly unusual.'"
    "All six had epilepsy?" I asked. Details like this were just out of reach lately, but I remembered something about seizures.
    "Diabetes, we now think. Obviously it was something genetic, something that struck around puberty, as all six children passed away between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, having enjoyed perfect health as children."
    "Poor Mrs. Kellerton," I said, staring at the portrait. I could understand why she didn't have any sparkle in those trailing eyes. "It
is
kind of coincidental that we would end up here ... Perfect health as children, then something threatening strikes in our teenage years..."
    Mrs. Starn laughed uneasily. "That has been duly noted lately at board meetings. It is a coincidence, something no one thought of until after the grant came through—and after we realized we'd only be getting the four of you and not the Level Threes as well. But I made sure to keep any talk of strange spiritual influences as a sidebar. Mrs. Kellerton ran the glass foundry after Captain Kellerton was killed in the Civil War, then the sawmill. My comment to my board was well taken: 'Let's not get carried away.'"
    I liked her levelheadedness; I'd always had an easier time talking to adults than to people my own age. I hunted around for my feelings on the subject of a spiritual realm, which were confused.
    "Sometimes lately I sense my mother around me, which is not a good feeling. We didn't have a great relationship. She was..." I put my hand to my throat, my compulsive gesture when talking about Aleese in our therapy sessions. "...she died a drug addict. But sensing my mother—that's different from walking around in a place like this and expecting to see one of the dead Kellerton children. Perhaps it's that my mother is personal to me. Spooky stories are impersonal. Something like that..."
    "I definitely believe in contact with the dead, though not in the silly way that locals love to ramble about," Mrs. Starn said, which made my head turn. "Parents and loved ones go off to higher places and see things from a higher perspective. They can definitely help us out."
    "Mm ... yes," I stumbled, not wanting to announce that most often, I felt my mother was laughing at me. Our therapist, Dr. Hollis, believed it was our drug protocol. I'd been the only one to hallucinate on one of our early painkillers toward the end of March, and it had been of Aleese standing beside my bed, laughing at me in a taunting way. It turned out to be a nurse who had awakened me from a dream of Aleese. Our drug had been changed immediately, however, and I hadn't seen Aleese since. I simply sensed her.
    Mrs. Starn put a reassuring hand on my arm, gazing into my eyes. I suppose the wisdom of her years took over. "Maybe your mother has something wonderful to share,